DRC Ebola cases near 3,000 as health workers strike over unpaid wages

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is showing no signs of slowing, with confirmed cases approaching 3,000. The crisis is deepening as frontline health workers have walked off the job over unpaid wages, even as infections and deaths climb at an unprecedented pace.

The DRC's Ministry of Communication and Media said Saturday that cumulative confirmed Ebola cases stood at 2,973 as of Thursday. That figure was 2,536 on Tuesday, meaning 437 new cases were recorded in just two days. The death toll also rose by 276 over the same period to 1,309, pushing the case fatality rate to 44.0 percent. The Bundibugyo strain of Ebola typically carries a fatality rate of 30 to 50 percent, meaning the current outbreak is approaching the upper end of that range.

Despite the severity of the situation, strikes have continued on the front lines of the response, the Associated Press reported. Health workers have not been receiving their wages on time. At the Elikia Ebola Treatment Center in Bunia — the capital of Ituri Province in the northeast, where the outbreak originated — about 100 doctors, nurses and security staff staged a protest outside the facility on Saturday, saying they had gone two months without receiving bonuses. Last week, a strike over unpaid wages also broke out at Bunia General Hospital, the largest hospital in the region. Frontline workers are losing momentum at the very moment the outbreak is at its peak.

Amid the crisis, treatment and vaccine development is accelerating. Earlier this month, two candidate treatments for Bundibugyo Ebola entered clinical trials, and a vaccine candidate began its own trial on Friday, AFP reported. The University of Oxford said it administered its Bundibugyo Ebola vaccine candidate, ChAdOx1 BDBV, to a 37-year-old volunteer for the first time on Friday. The vaccine uses the same technology as AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine, and the Serum Institute of India has already produced 620,000 doses. Oxford plans to evaluate the vaccine's safety and immune response in 50 healthy adults during the Phase 1 trial.

With clinical trials for treatments and vaccines gaining momentum even as the outbreak strains frontline capacity, observers say the outcome will depend on how these two trajectories intersect.