An Ebola outbreak which has killed at least 131 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo may be spreading faster than originally thought, a World Health Organization (WHO) representative has warned.
Dr Anne Ancia told the BBC that the more the agency investigates, the clearer it becomes that cases have spread to other areas.
Officials said more than 513 cases were suspected in DR Congo as of Tuesday, while one person has died in neighbouring Uganda.
But modelling by the London-based MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis released on Monday suggested there had been “substantial” under-detection, and that it could not rule out there had already been more than 1,000 cases.
The study suggested that the current outbreak is “larger than currently ascertained” and that its “true magnitude remains uncertain”.
The Red Cross warned that Ebola can escalate quickly if cases are not identified early, communities lack information and health systems are overwhelmed, adding that “we are seeing all those conditions” in the current outbreak.
On Tuesday, DR Congo President Félix Tshisekedi called for “calm” and urged Congolese citizens to remain vigilant, after holding a crisis meeting on Monday evening.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who declared the outbreak an international emergency last week, said he was “deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the epidemic”.
Discussion about this post