{"id":688397,"date":"2026-05-23T00:28:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T00:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/688397\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T00:28:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T00:28:14","slug":"who-upgrades-risk-assessment-for-ebola-outbreak-in-democratic-republic-of-congo-to-very-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/688397\/","title":{"rendered":"WHO upgrades risk assessment for Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo to ‘very high’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The World Health Organization has raised its risk assessment of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola turning into a national outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to “very high”.<\/p>\n

The strain, for which there is no approved vaccine or treatment, was declared an emergency \u200bof international concern<\/a> by the WHO last \u200bSunday.<\/p>\n

“We are now revising our risk assessment to very high at the national level, high at the regional level, and low at global level,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters, confirming the regional and global level assessments had stayed the same.<\/p>\n

So far, 82 cases of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola have been confirmed in Congo, with seven confirmed deaths, 177 suspected deaths and almost 750 suspected cases.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. (Reuters: Denis Balibouse)<\/p>\n

Funerals banned in eastern province<\/p>\n

On Friday, the DRC’s eastern Ituri province, which is most affected by the outbreak, banned the local practice of funeral wakes, a day after residents clashed with police while trying to recover the body of a footballer whose family denied he had died due to the virus.<\/p>\n

Congo football team cancels Kinshasa World Cup farewell<\/a><\/p>\n

Most of the team play and train in Europe, however staff and players who have been in Congo recently will face quarantine in the US ahead of the World Cup.<\/p>\n

The incident, in the town of Rwampara, recalled the hundreds of similar attacks on health facilities during the country’s 2018-20 outbreak, underscoring the difficulty of imposing strict disease-control practices that conflict with local customs.<\/p>\n

“We need to put a lot of efforts now on educating the population,” the WHO’s regional director for Africa, Mohamed Yakub Janabi, said.<\/p>\n

“There’s a lot of misinformation on the ground, so that’s another epidemic by itself.”<\/p>\n

Ebola is an often-fatal virus that causes fever, body aches, vomiting and diarrhoea. It spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids.<\/p>\n

Bodies of Ebola victims are highly infectious after death, and unsafe burials \u2014 in which family members handle \u2060the body without proper protective equipment \u2014 are a leading driver of transmission.<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Health authorities say fighting misinformation is a key part of slowing the outbreak. (Reuters: Gradel Muyisa Mumbere)<\/p>\n

“So anyone who touches the body during carrying, washing, shrouding, moving is at extremely high risk of contracting the virus,” said Laura Archer, lead for clinical care and public health in emergencies for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).<\/p>\n

The provincial government also limited public gatherings to 50 people and suspended the local football league.<\/p>\n

WHO works to contain outbreak to DRC<\/p>\n

The situation in Uganda is stable, with two cases confirmed in people who travelled from the DRC, one of them fatal, Dr Tedros said.<\/p>\n

“The potential of this virus spreading rapidly is high, very high, and that has changed the whole dynamic,” said Abdirahman Mahamud, the WHO’s director of health emergency alert and response operations.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Passengers already screened for Ebola pass through a checkpoint at Goma, in Kivu province. (Reuters: Arlette Bashizi)<\/p>\n

Measures taken in Uganda, including intense contact tracing and the cancellation of a planned mass gathering, appear to have been effective in stemming the spread of the virus, Dr Tedros said.<\/p>\n

A US national who was working in Congo has also been confirmed to have the virus and been transferred to Germany for care.<\/p>\n

“We are also aware of reports today about another American national with a high-risk contact who has been transferred to the Czech Republic,” Dr Tedros added.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A US doctor arrives in Prague after reportedly coming into contact with an Ebola patient in Uganda. (Reuters: Eva Korinkova)<\/p>\n

The DRC’s eastern neighbour, Rwanda, said on Friday it would deny entry to all foreign nationals who had travelled to or transited through the DRC in the past 30 days, and would require quarantines for Rwandan nationals or residents who had been in the DRC during that period.<\/p>\n

The WHO has urged countries neighbouring Congo to keep borders open, saying closures could encourage informal crossings and hamper aid delivery.<\/p>\n

Experimental drug used for contact cases<\/p>\n

The WHO’s chief scientist, Sylvie Briand, said an antiviral treatment called Obeldesivir could be used among Ebola contacts to prevent them from developing the disease.<\/p>\n

Obeldesivir is an experimental oral COVID antiviral drug from Gilead Sciences.<\/p>\n

Why is there no vaccine for this Ebola outbreak?<\/a><\/p>\n

The latest Ebola outbreak is caused by a strain of virus discovered nearly two decades ago, yet there is no vaccine. Can one now be fast-tracked?<\/p>\n

“This is a promising treatment drug, but it has still to be implemented under a very, very strict protocol,” Dr Briand said.<\/p>\n

The WHO said there were early signs of surveillance working as it was picking up more cases.<\/p>\n

However, it said it was having to catch up as the outbreak likely started two months ago, but was only declared last Friday.<\/p>\n

“We are sprinting behind, so that we can really try to control this outbreak. Because [the virus] is still transmitting for the time being, the number will keep rising for some time,” said the WHO’s representative in the DRC, Anne Ancia.<\/p>\n

The BBC is also reporting that scientists at Oxford are developing a vaccine for the Bundibugyo strain that could be ready for clinical trials within two to three months.<\/p>\n

Reuters\/ABC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The World Health Organization has raised its risk assessment of the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola turning into a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":688398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,336146,84608,137,52226,318981,7277,3854,18558],"class_list":["post-688397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bundibugyo","tag-ebola","tag-health","tag-outbreak","tag-tedros-adhanom-ghebreyesus","tag-virus","tag-world-health-organisation","tag-world-health-organization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/688398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}