Ebola virus disease – Democratic Republic of the Congo

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As the Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak surpasses the 2000 case mark, indicators over the past two weeks provide early signs of an easing of the transmission intensity. This follows a period of improved security and therefore access to communities, allowing response teams to operate more freely. A total of 88 confirmed cases were reported each week for the past two epidemiological weeks, down from a peak of 126 cases per week observed in April. Declines in the incidence of new cases have been most apparent in hotspots such as Katwa, Mandima and Beni health zones. Concurrently, improvements in the proportion of cases among contacts registered prior to onset (up from 30% three weeks ago to 55% last week), and a lower proportion of cases resulting from transmission within community health facilities (from 31% during the first week of April 2019 to 9% during the last week of May 2019), are encouraging. Nevertheless, both indicators are below where we would aim to be. The outbreak continues to be contained within 12 active health zones in North Kivu and Ituri provinces.

However, substantive rates of transmission continue within affected communities, and further waves of the outbreak may be expected. An increase in the incidence of new cases has been reported from Mabalako Health Zone in recent weeks, and high infection rates continue within Butembo metropolitan. Times between detecting, reporting and admission of cases at Ebola treatment/transit centres (ETCs) remains too long (median 6 days, interquartile range 4–9 days in the past 3 weeks), with about a third (34% in the past 3 weeks) of cases dying outside of ETCs. Collectively these indicators highlight that the risks associated with this outbreak remain very high.

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