SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
The Ebola outbreak is accelerating across eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Infections and deaths are rising at an alarming rate. The outbreak has now killed more than 1,500 people, and more than 3,000 cases have been recorded. That makes it the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record. Emmet Livingstone spoke with a man brought in by the United Nations to coordinate the Ebola response there.
EMMET LIVINGSTONE, BYLINE: In eastern Congo, the virus is outpacing efforts to contain it.
JULIEN HARNEIS: In the last seven days, we've recorded 250 deaths, which is double the worst week of any previous epidemic within DRC.
LIVINGSTONE: Julien Harneis was recently appointed as the United Nations senior Ebola coordinator in Congo. A veteran humanitarian official who has worked in some of the world's most challenging crises, he says the outbreak is already approaching the scale of Congo's last major epidemic but across a much wider area.
HARNEIS: We've already reached 60% of all the deaths that occurred in the last big epidemic, which was 1990 into 2020. And we cover a far wider area within DRC.
LIVINGSTONE: The response itself is a huge coordination challenge. Government departments, health agencies, international organizations and dozens of NGOs, all with different funders, rules and levels of expertise, must work together to stop the virus. And this is happening in an area where militia groups are fighting. Harneis says one of the biggest challenges is getting people into treatment quickly. Some patients delay seeking care or avoid it altogether, which increases the risk of death. Treatment centers are also under severe pressure. There are about 900 beds for Ebola patients currently, but that capacity needs to be doubled or tripled and quickly.
HARNEIS: At the moment, we are not at the speed and the scale and the agility that the virus requires from us. We definitely have a challenge there, and we are working to address that.
LIVINGSTONE: Ebola is now present in five provinces in Eastern Congo, having spread rapidly from the epicenter in the province of Ituri. Meanwhile, there are fears Ebola will spill over Congo's borders.
HARNEIS: I think the far more challenging issue is towards South Sudan.
LIVINGSTONE: Ituri shares a border with the fragile country of South Sudan, with the populated areas of the province tightly linked to settlements on the other side of the border.
HARNEIS: You have a really dense population with thousands and thousands of tiny little villages and some big towns. And what the modeling is showing is that the transmission is moving along with the population in those areas. And that is much more difficult to control.
LIVINGSTONE: Harneis, like every Ebola responder, says that speed is of the essence to stop the outbreak from spreading further. The next few weeks will be critical.
HARNEIS: It's really tough, but with good colleagues, with international support, which we do have, we have the possibility to address this, but we need to put more at it. We need to get to scale faster than we've done so far.
LIVINGSTONE: For NPR News, I'm Emmet Livingstone in Kinshasa.
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