Kinshasa, Aug 14 — The ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has spread to a sixth province, with confirmed cases rising to 4,665, the government said Friday.
The health zone of Buta in the northern province of Bas-Uele has been added to the list of affected areas, bringing the number of affected health zones nationwide to 54, according to the latest update released by the country's public health authorities.
The outbreak is now affecting six provinces -- Bas-Uele, Haut-Uele, Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu and Tshopo -- with the northeastern province of Ituri remaining the main epicentre, Xinhua News Agency reported.
A total of 2,184 deaths have been recorded among confirmed cases, putting the overall case fatality rate at 46.8 per cent. Meanwhile, 965 people have recovered since the start of the outbreak.
On May 15, the DRC declared the Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo ebolavirus.
Meanwhile, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has called for support for the immediate implementation of the DRC government's decision to deploy the Ervebo vaccine to help contain the "rapidly escalating" Ebola outbreak in the country.
Africa CDC Director-General Jean Kaseya, during an online briefing on Thursday, described the move as "a big step" in the ongoing response against the rare Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak, highlighting that the Central African country has already submitted a request for 100,000 doses of the Ervebo vaccine to the International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Provision.
Warning that the current emergency "risks becoming the deadliest the country has faced, and we cannot allow that trajectory to continue," Kaseya said the requested vaccine doses will support clinical trials, the vaccination of front-line responders, and those in urgent need of the vaccine.
The lack of licensed vaccines or targeted medical countermeasures against the rare Bundibugyo strain is further driving the disease's rapid transmission across parts of the DRC.
The Ervebo vaccine is a World Health Organisation (WHO) pre-qualified, single-dose vaccine for the disease caused by the Zaire Ebola virus strain and has an extensive safety and deployment record.
Highlighting Ervebo's potential cross-protection and the current emergency context, Kaseya stressed that deployment of this vaccine is a strategic approach to reduce severe illness and deaths. He said this approach will simultaneously generate the rigorous evidence needed to guide the wider response.