Doctors Without Borders / MSF-USA 27d ago

Increased testing is the current priority in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to get a full picture of the Ebola disease situation, Ewald Stals, MSF's country representative in DRC, explained on CNN on June 1. “We still do not have a full picture of what is going on, and you can only get that by testing all the suspected cases that you can either confirm and start treating them, or you discharge them because they have another disease,” Stals said. “We cannot move forward when we have too many cases there are still not confirmed.” Unlike previous Ebola outbreaks involving the more common Zaire virus, this outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, which has no effective vaccines or simple diagnostic tests. That means patient samples must be sent for lab testing.