Ebola Is Moving Faster This Time: What the New African Outbreak Means

The Scary News

The frightening part of the latest Ebola outbreak is not simply that Ebola has returned.

It is how quickly it is spreading. Health authorities say the current outbreak involving the Bundibugyo virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda has become the second-largest Ebola outbreak on record.

The outbreak crossed 1,000 confirmed cases in the DRC within 40 days of response activation. That is dramatically faster than the 2018 DRC outbreak, which took about 235 days to pass the same threshold.

ValidViewNetwork reports that confirmed cases have been recorded across several provinces in the DRC, while Uganda has so far reported cases in Kampala linked to travel from the DRC.

The outbreak is being complicated by weak health infrastructure and insecurity, making contact tracing and infection control harder.

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There is no reason for panic outside the affected areas. There is, however, every reason for vigilance.

The lesson from Ebola’s history is brutally simple: outbreaks become harder to control when warning signs are treated as somebody else’s problem. ValidViewNetwork reports.