GENEVA, June 6 — Nearly 500 Ebola cases have now been confirmed in the deadly outbreak raging in central Africa, a WHO overview showed Saturday, amid mounting concern over the swelling scale of the epidemic.

In its daily update on the situation, the World Health Organization tallied 452 confirmed cases, including 82 deaths, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the outbreak was declared three weeks ago.

In neighbouring Uganda, meanwhile, it counted 19 confirmed cases, including two deaths.

The total of 471 cases and 84 deaths, based on numbers reported by the DRC and Ugandan governments, marked a hike of 100 cases and 20 deaths from a day earlier.

The increase came amid warnings that the outbreak, which the WHO has declared an international public health emergency, could eventually swell to become the largest on record.

A top official at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that models indicated that without strong public health interventions, the current outbreak risked rivalling the scale of the 2014 West Africa epidemic, which saw over 28,000 cases and more than 11,000 deaths.

“That scale is possible,” said Jason Asher, director of CDC’s Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, during a press briefing.

Ebola, which is spread through close contact and bodily fluids, has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa over the past 50 years.

The current outbreak was declared on May 15 in northeastern DR Congo, but the virus is believed to have spread under the radar for some time beforehand.

There are no approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo species of Ebola behind the outbreak.

The WHO and the African CDC on Friday launched a $518-million plan to battle the outbreak over the next six months, focusing among other things on boosting surveillance, laboratory testing and infection prevention.

“The outbreak is moving fast, and we are still playing catch-up,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.

“We need to stop the outbreak where it is, support countries that are responding today, and ensure that neighbouring countries are ready to detect and act quickly if cases appear,” he said.

“This is a serious outbreak and its one we know how to stop but we need to move fast and together.” — AFP

Before Ebola began to spread last April, the health situation in Ituri province in northeastern the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was already dire, with cholera outbreaks, diarrheal diseases, and thousands displaced from their homes. But what is coming now is a major crisis.

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On December 10, 2024, a woman arrived at a health facility in Pariak, a town in the state of Jonglei in South Sudan, with diarrhea, vomiting and symptoms of dehydration. She had recently returned from an area affected by cholera. In one of the most vulnerable countries in the world, where millions of people lack regular access to clean water and health services, this could have been the beginning of a new emergency.

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Modelling from US CDC shows Ebola spread could be on ‘dangerous trajectory’, but experts warn outbreaks can be very hard to predict

Central Africa’s Ebola outbreak could spread to be similar in scale to the worst outbreak in history, west Africa’s 2014-2016 outbreak that killed more than 11,000 people, according to a new analysis by US health officials.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday published a range of scenarios generated by computer models, from 10,000 cases to more than 20,000. In the west Africa outbreak, more than 28,000 cases were reported.

When Furaha Tikamanyire began feeling ill on April 26, she did not imagine she had contracted Ebola. For weeks, this nurse at the Bunia Evangelical Medical Center in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had cared for dozens of people arriving from the Mongbwalu region, about 75 kilometers away, where the virus had begun spreading before it was identified.

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Police dispersed demonstrators in Nanyuki, 120 miles from Nairobi, amid rising anger at US plans

Kenyan police have shot dead a man during a protest against a proposed Ebola quarantine facility for US citizens.

Patrick Wahome, who has organised protests in Nanyuki against the centre, told Reuters on Tuesday the man died from a gunshot wound to the head. Reporters from the agency saw his body lying motionless in a police van with a large head wound.