WHO declares international emergency as Ebola kills over 80 in DR Congo

Medical workers disinfect the coffin of a deceased unconfirmed Ebola patient inside an Ebola Treatment Centre run by The Alliance for International Medical Action, on August 13, 2018, in Beni. [AFP]

An Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed more than 80 as authorities warned there was no vaccine for the strain in a crisis that the World Health Organisation declared an international health emergency on Sunday.

A total of 88 deaths and 336 suspected cases of the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever have been reported, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC Africa) said in an update on Saturday.

The Geneva-based WHO said early on Sunday the outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola constituted a "public health emergency of international concern" -- the second-highest level of alert under international health regulations.

The global health body warned the true scale of the number of cases and spread was not clear but stopped short of declaring a pandemic emergency, the highest alert level introduced in 2024.

Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it was preparing a "large-scale response", calling the rapid spread of the outbreak "extremely concerning", in warnings echoed by authorities.

"The Bundibugyo strain has no vaccine, no specific treatment," DR Congo's Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba said.

"This strain has a very high lethality rate, which can reach 50 percent."

The strain -- which was first identified in 2007 -- has also killed a Congolese national in neighbouring Uganda, officials said Saturday.

Vaccines are only available for the Zaire strain, which was identified in 1976 and has a higher fatality rate of 60-90 percent.

Health officials had confirmed the latest outbreak Friday in Ituri province in northeastern DRC, bordering Uganda and South Sudan, according to CDC Africa.

"We've been seeing people die for the past two weeks," said Isaac Nyakulinda, a local civil society representative contacted by AFP by phone.

"There is nowhere to isolate the sick. They are dying at home and their bodies are being handled by their family members."

According to Kamba, patient zero was a nurse who reported to a health facility in Ituri's provincial capital Bunia on April 24, with symptoms suggesting Ebola.

Symptoms of the disease include fever, haemorrhaging and vomiting.

"The number of cases and deaths we are seeing in such a short timeframe, combined with the spread across several health zones and now across the border, is extremely concerning," says Trish Newport, MSF Emergency Programme Manager, which is mobilising medical and support staff to the area.

Large-scale transport of medical equipment is a challenge in DR Congo, a country of more than 100 million people which is four times the size of France but has poor communications infrastructure.

It is the 17th Ebola outbreak to hit the DRC, and officials warned of a high risk of spread.

"There are significant uncertainties to the true number of infected persons and geographic spread," the WHO said.

But it added the high positivity rate of initial samples, the confirmation of cases in two countries, and the increasing reports of suspected cases, "all point towards a potentially much larger outbreak than what is currently being detected and reported, with significant local and regional risk of spread."

The previous outbreak of Ebola -- which has killed around 15,000 people in Africa over the past 50 years, despite advances in vaccines and treatment -- was last August in the central region.

That episode killed at least 34 people, before being declared eradicated in December.

Nearly 2,300 people died in the deadliest outbreak in the DRC between 2018 and 2020.

Ebola, believed to have originated in bats, can cause severe bleeding and organ failure.

Outbreaks over the past half century have seen a mortality rate among those affected of between 25 percent and 90 percent, according to WHO

The virus spreads from person to person through bodily fluids or exposure to the blood of an infected persons, who become contagious only once they display symptoms. The incubation period can last up to 21 days.