Since the outbreak was officially declared on 15 May, 7,258 Ebola cases have been confirmed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, with 3,510 deaths and 1,726 recoveries, while the virus has spread to seven provinces. That’s the hard count behind the official language of control. People in the affected provinces are living with a disease that keeps moving faster than the institutions meant to contain it, even as Congolese Health Minister Samuel Kamba says the epidemic has passed its peak.
Who Pays for the Delay
Kamba pointed to a gradual slowdown in transmission since mid-August, saying daily infections have fallen from around 120 new cases to nearly 80. But the numbers also show how much damage has already been done. The outbreak has killed 3,510 people. It has reached seven provinces. And the World Health Organization says it is still too early to declare victory, because the national picture hides what’s happening on the ground.
Olivier le Polain, head of the WHO's epidemiology and analysis unit, put it bluntly: “Trends at the national level do not reflect trends at the provincial or local level.” Asked on Tuesday whether the outbreak had reached a turning point, he said, “It's too early to confidently say we have passed a peak.” That’s the language of an apparatus trying to keep pace with a crisis it doesn’t fully control.
The Epicentre Still Bleeds
Ituri province, the epicentre of the outbreak, accounts for 78 percent of confirmed cases, and three health zones — Adja, Kambala and Mahagi — have gone 41 days without recording a new case, health officials at the African Union said. Those are real signs of improvement. But they sit beside a much uglier reality in North Kivu, where Ebola is spreading at an “exponential” rate, particularly in the city of Butembo, according to the WHO.
North Kivu accounted for around 45 percent of all cases reported last week. That means the crisis isn’t fading evenly. It’s shifting, concentrating, and hitting some places far harder than others while officials argue over whether the peak has been reached. The virus doesn’t care about the neat summaries issued from above.
South Ubangi became the seventh province affected after a case was detected there last week, far from the epicentre. The WHO said that new case shows the risk of the epidemic spreading to other parts of the country as large numbers of people move around. Movement, in other words, becomes another route for the virus when the state can’t stop it and the health system can’t absorb it.
What They’re Calling Control
The WHO estimated last week that another 5,000 health workers are needed to tackle the epidemic. Several treatments and vaccines are being tested against the Bundibugyo Ebola virus behind the current outbreak, but no approved vaccine or treatment currently exists. That leaves the people in the affected areas waiting on a medical response that’s still incomplete, while the outbreak keeps exacting its toll.
UN officials said on Tuesday that efforts to curb Ebola in eastern DR Congo are beginning to show results, but they stressed that the epidemic remains severe and will take months to bring under control. Julien Harneis, the UN special Ebola coordinator, said, “It remains a deadly and a massive epidemic.” He added, “There are some areas of progress, but nonetheless, in other areas, we continue to see growth in cases.”
That’s the contradiction at the center of the story. Officials can point to slowing transmission in some places, and they can point to zones that have gone weeks without a new case. But the outbreak has already spread across seven provinces, killed thousands, and kept moving into new territory. The hierarchy of response is still chasing the crisis, one province at a time, while the people at the bottom carry the consequences.