Jazeera: The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda a “public health emergency of international concern” after more than 300 suspected cases and 88 deaths were reported.
In a social media post on Sunday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the outbreak does not meet the criteria for a pandemic emergency but that neighbouring countries are at high risk of further spread.
Health authorities have confirmed the current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus disease (BVD), a rare type of Ebola disease that has no approved therapeutics or vaccines. Although more than 20 Ebola outbreaks have taken place in the DRC and Uganda, this is only the third time BVD has been reported.
The WHO said the outbreak could be much larger, given the high positivity rate of the initial samples and the increasing number of suspected cases being reported.
The DRC accounts for all except two of the cases, both of which were reported in neighbouring Uganda, the WHO said.
Officials first reported the spread of the virus in the DRC’s eastern province of Ituri, close to Uganda and South Sudan, on Friday. On Saturday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (ACDCP) reported 336 suspected cases and 87 deaths.
Later on Sunday, a laboratory confirmed a case in the major DRC city of Goma, under the control of the Rwanda-backed M23 militia, health authorities told the AFP news agency.
“A positive case in Goma has been confirmed by tests carried out by the laboratory. It involves the wife of a man who died of Ebola in Bunia, who travelled to Goma after her husband’s death whilst already infected,” Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director of the Congolese National Institute for Biomedical Research (INRB), told AFP.
The DRC/Rwanda border closure has put everybody in the region on high alert, said Al Jazeera’s Alain Uaykani, reporting from Goma.
The positive case in Goma demonstrates why Rwanda’s preventive measures were “justified”, Uaykani said.
Uganda on Saturday confirmed one case it said was imported from the DRC, saying the patient died at a hospital in its capital, Kampala. The WHO then confirmed a second case had been reported in Kampala, adding that the two cases did not appear to be linked and both patients had travelled from the DRC.
Uganda’s health authorities have implemented measures at the hospital where the Congolese man died, said Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soy, reporting from Kampala.
Health workers at the hospital “are testing people, they’re checking for fever, they’re sanitising people and they’re giving them masks”, Soy said.
Government officials say “that they managed to trace people that this man interacted with” and are now monitoring them, she said.
President Yoweri Museveni has also said that “there is no need for alarm, as the situation is under control,” Soy said, adding that “the border with DRC has not been closed yet, but government officials say that they are monitoring all this very closely”.
The DRC-Uganda outbreak poses a public health risk to neighbouring countries, the United Nations health agency said, advising countries to activate their national disaster and emergency management mechanisms and undertake cross-border screening and screening at main internal roads.
The WHO advised immediate isolation of confirmed cases, allowing only restricted national travel and no international travel until 21 days after exposure.
It urged countries not to close their borders or restrict travel and trade, as this could lead to people and goods making unmonitored border crossings.
The often-fatal and highly contagious virus, which causes fever, body aches, vomiting and diarrhoea, spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, contaminated materials or those who have died from the disease, according to the ACDCP.
Prophetic Link:
“For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.” Matthew 24:7
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