By early August, there were around 3,800 confirmed Ebola cases and roughly 1,700 deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The situation is complex, and a number of factors have to fall into place to bring the outbreak under control.
Officially, it is the second-worst Ebola outbreak in history. The reasons why so many cases have already been recorded in Congo are varied, according to epidemiologist and Director of Operational Research (LuxOR) Dr Amrish Baidjoe at Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Luxembourg.
"One clear reason is that the outbreak went undetected for a very long time", Dr Baidjoe explained. This means that cases were able to spread across the country and even across borders without anyone picking up on them. Another reason is a question of access. Not every part of the country has hospitals or doctors that are available, equipped and trained to handle Ebola.
On top of that come armed conflicts in the country, mistrust of the healthcare system and insufficient funding.
What is needed, Dr Baidjoe continued, are people who go out into communities, whom residents already know and can talk to, in order to build trust in a country that is constantly buffeted by conflict, where health capacity is limited and where a range of other diseases is also in circulation.
Since the virus is transmissible from person to person, contact tracing and quarantine are being used, as during the Covid pandemic. But that also requires personnel and infrastructure.
The only way to get the outbreak under control, Dr Baidjoe said, is to ensure that health workers can do their job, which means having the right materials and equipment. Beyond that, there also has to be a proper facility where people showing symptoms can go and be seen by health workers.
Funding is also needed for research, in order to run studies on possible treatments or vaccines. It is equally important to reach out to people proactively, to inform them of Ebola's symptoms so that the virus can be recognised as quickly as possible, and to explain what to do, so that they are not afraid to seek medical help.
"A large part of the work", Dr Baidjoe added, "involves treating the outbreak as a human matter and not simply framing it as a technical challenge." That, he said, is what would be a make-or-break approach with an outbreak of this kind.
It is nonetheless expected that it will take some time before the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo is brought under control. Around 1,400 MSF staff are currently deployed on the ground to combat the Ebola outbreak.
MSF's work, however, is only made possible through private donations, and the organisation is therefore appealing to people to keep giving, so that its teams can continue working wherever they are needed.
