Maeve Cullinan Global Health Security Reporter

The first Ebola case in the current epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) may date back as far as January, according to local medics.

The information was shared with several international NGOs, including the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Action Aid and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), by local medics last week, sources have told The Telegraph. 

The medics believe the outbreak began with a patient treated at a hospital in Rwampara, a town in eastern DRC, in late January. They said the patient went on to infect eight healthcare workers before dying in February. 

At least 1,077 suspected cases and 223 deaths linked to the rare Bundibugyo species of Ebola have since been reported in the DRC, along with nine confirmed cases in neighbouring Uganda.

It is already the third-largest outbreak of Ebola ever recorded.

If confirmed, the information would suggest that the virus has been spreading unchecked for at least four months, having only been officially confirmed by the Congolese Ministry of Health on May 15. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) had previously said they believed the index case was a healthcare worker in Bunia, who developed symptoms of Ebola on April 25 and later died. 

The detection lag would have serious implications for health teams trying to contain the spread of the Bundibugyo species, which currently has no licenced vaccines or treatments and is proving notoriously difficult to control.

Only 20 per cent of people known to have close contact with Ebola patients in the DRC have been traced, with thousands still unaccounted for.

If the outbreak started in January, many thousands more potential contacts would have been exposed.

Containment efforts have been further complicated by a combination of conspiracy theories, mistrust, and a volatile security situation that has fuelled a significant wave of violence against healthcare workers and facilities treating infected people.

Last week, a treatment centre in Rwampara run by MSF was attacked by a group of people in an attempt to retrieve the bodies of their relatives who had died of Ebola.

“The true scale of this Ebola outbreak is likely far worse than official figures suggest,” Rachel Howard, Senior Technical Emergency Health Advisor at the IRC, said. 

“When four out of five contacts are not being traced, it becomes incredibly difficult to contain the outbreak or even understand its true scale. We’re especially concerned about the virus spreading to other countries like Burundi or South Sudan,” Ms Howard added. 

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO, visited Ituri last week amid the outbreak and said more international support was needed to curb the virus’s spread.

Health officials and aid workers on the ground have complained that they lack basic supplies such as face masks. 

He noted the global health agency had received only a third of the funding required to support efforts on the ground like distributing testing kits, setting up treatment tents, and carrying out contact tracing. 

The British government announced last week it would pledge £21 million to the DRC to assist containment efforts, although critics noted the figure is just 5 per cent of the aid it spent tackling the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014. 

It comes as the UK and several other Western countries have dramatically cut their aid budgets in the last year to pivot money towards defence spending.

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