Ebola Explodes In Africa Much Faster Than Infamous 2010s Outbreak
The Ebola virus has returned with a vengeance as a new strain spreads across central Africa at breakneck speed.
The Ebola virus has returned with a vengeance as a new strain spreads across central Africa at breakneck speed.
With over 8,000 confirmed cases of ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the spread of the new Bundibugyo virus is the second-largest recorded outbreak of the disease. At this rapid rate of infection, the total number of current cases rivals the number that swept across West Africa during the early days of the 2010s Ebola epidemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
With a fatality rate of 48 percent, the contagion has cost 3,799 lives, according to a Friday press release from the World Health Organization (WHO).
The initial outbreak reported in May, surpassed 1,000 confirmed cases within 40 days — much faster than the 2018 Ebola outbreak in DRC which took approximately 235 days to breach the same threshold, the CDC reported.
The U.S. government has committed to over one billion dollarsin funding for Ebola response activities, according to an official statement from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to Daily Caller News Foundation. HHS and the Department of State are working in close coordination with partners in the region, to respond to the outbreak.
“More than 500 CDC staff are supporting the response, including more than 120 personnel deployed to affected countries, where they are providing expertise in disease surveillance and contact tracing, laboratory testing, infection prevention and control, border health, clinical guidance and training, and community engagement,” an HHS spokesperson said in a statement to the DCNF.
From May 21 to Sept. 21, the CDC conducted public health entry screening for more than 15,000 travelers at Washington Dulles, JFK, and Atlanta airports, according to a U.S. official.