Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Thursday that the Congo Ebola outbreak "remains out of control" six months after it began, and that international aid is not reaching frontline workers, patients and communities, according to allAfrica. The outbreak is the country’s worst, and it has killed more than 5,300 people out of more than 11,000 confirmed cases.
The outbreak was first detected in mid-May in Ituri province, a conflict-plagued area of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Official Congolese figures showed on Wednesday that confirmed cases had passed 11,000, as armed conflict hampers the response, according to Africanews.
MSF cited healthcare workers who are not being paid or trained, ambulances left without fuel, and surveillance teams that "exist on paper but are nowhere to be seen on the ground."
The group said some hospitals have become "new centres of transmission, rather than places of care," and that many cases are likely being missed, according to allAfrica and the Japan Times. MSF also said that three-quarters of patients in one North Kivu area caught the disease in a health facility. That figure comes from MSF and has not been independently confirmed.
MSF urged the Congolese state to show more "transparency and accountability" and called for broader access to the ERVEBO vaccine for people at risk.
The current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain, for which no approved vaccine or treatment is currently available, according to allAfrica. A virus-specific vaccine is in development but could take months. The virus has also spread beyond the DRC to Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria.
Despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent by the international community, MSF’s international president, Javid Abdelmoneim, said many frontline responders are left with "empty hands and empty pockets," according to allAfrica.
MSF’s calls for broader ERVEBO vaccine access and for a dedicated Bundibugyo vaccine are the key next steps identified in the reporting. The sources do not describe any scheduled government action.
The reporting has gaps. No response from the Congolese government or health authorities to MSF’s criticism is included. The Africanews and Japan Times items were available only as headlines and short excerpts, so their full details could not be checked. No second independent source on conditions on the ground is included, and the sources give no figure for how much aid money has reached the front line or how many cases are unconfirmed.
Sources
This article was written with AI assistance from the published reporting listed above. It is part of the World Brief daily news podcast.