DEBBIE ELLIOTT, HOST:
Ebola cases are falling in the hardest hit areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo, but health workers also say the disease is spreading farther than ever, as Emmet Livingstone reports.
EMMET LIVINGSTONE, BYLINE: Four months into Congo's Ebola outbreak, treatment centers are still busy caring for patients as health workers try to contain the virus. The disease has killed over 3,600 people since it emerged in mid-May, becoming one of the largest Ebola outbreaks in history. But the Congolese government has announced that the worst may be over. Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe is the director general of Congo's National Institute for Biomedical Research.
JEAN-JACQUES MUYEMBE: (Non-English language spoken).
LIVINGSTONE: "I didn't see any hearses," he said, after visiting the epicenter of the outbreak in Ituri in Northeastern Congo. "I didn't see any ambulances, so I found myself asking, where is this epidemic?" Muyembe says the caseload peaked in mid-August, and he's not just any government official making that assessment. He's the Congolese microbiologist who was part of the team that first discovered Ebola in 1976. Today, the 84-year-old is still a leading figure in the country's fight against the disease.
MUYEMBE: (Non-English language spoken).
LIVINGSTONE: "There is a clear improvement in the management of the epidemic," he told reporters.
MUYEMBE: (Non-English language spoken).
LIVINGSTONE: Muyembe says, he's seen the improvement firsthand and sees it as a sign of hope that the epidemic is beginning to come under control.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken, crying).
LIVINGSTONE: Hope is exactly what many Congolese people living in Ebola-affected areas and grieving the loss of loved ones need. The disease is still spreading in parts of the country heavily affected by armed conflict and where most people live in crushing poverty. Ebola is yet another severe problem that ordinary people have to worry about in their daily lives. And many experts on the ground disagree with the Congolese government's assessment.
JEAN KASEYA: No one can come and say the outbreak is under control. No one - I repeat that. It's useless to talk about contact list.
LIVINGSTONE: Dr. Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control, says the decline in cases is slight and may not yet signal a clear downward trend, and contact tracing is still woefully ineffective.
KASEYA: Currently in DRC, it's useless to talk about contact list.
LIVINGSTONE: To control Ebola, health workers need to trace and test contacts, but many new cases cannot be linked to known contacts, a sign the virus is still spreading. And on the ground across this vast region, that's exactly what Doctors Without Borders says is happening. In a rare public rebuke, the NGO warned it would be a mistake to say Ebola is under control. This month, it reached a new province in Western Congo, more than 700 miles from the outbreak's epicenter in Ituri. For many experts, the crisis remains urgent and far from over.
For NPR News, I'm Emmet Livingstone. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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