What it will take to stop the spiraling Ebola outbreak

A health worker at a hospital in Ituri province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo asks for help in receiving a person suspected of having Ebola. Credit: Glody Murhabazi/AFP via Getty The tally of people with suspected and confirmed cases of Ebola in central Africa is rocketing upwards with shocking speed — from 256 cases on 16 May to roughly 1,000 as of 27 May. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), some 240 people have died — and the outbreak shows no signs of slowing down (see ‘Ebola’s surge continues’). But specialists say that they have tools to help to control the outbreak, which is for now confined to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda, thanks to hard-won expertise gained during previous Ebola epidemics . Source: WHO and WHO disease outbreak news reports/Resolve to Save Lives The DRC, which is the epicentre of the current outbreak , has contended with several outbreaks of Ebola over the years, notes Chima Ohuabunwo, an epidemiologist at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. As a result, the DRC is one of the world’s most experienced countries in handling the virus species that cause the disease. “We should be in a better position to respond” than during previous outbreaks, Ohuabunwo says. One challenge is that there is neither a vaccine nor a targeted treatment for the specific virus causing this outbreak, the Bundibugyo species of ebolavirus. This means that other measures will be needed to stop the virus’s march. …