Amidst the raging global pandemic, COVID-19, The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) according to the World Health Organization (WHO), has also recorded nearly 50 known cases of Ebola which is spreading in the western DRC across a large region bordering the Republic of the Congo and the Central African Republic.
WHO’s top emergencies expert, Mike Ryan, on Monday revealed that 48 cases had been confirmed in DRC’s Equateur province since authorities announced a new outbreak there on June 1 and also there were three additional probable cases, while a total of 20 people have died.
In a news briefing he said,
“This is still a very active outbreak, and I would say it is still a great concern”.
The province includes part of the River Congo, he said, adding that it was a large geographical area where communities were linked, and people travelled long distances.
The newest outbreak becomes the 11th in the DRC since 1976 when scientists first characterised the disease. The WHO said that in the past month they have vaccinated 11,327 people against Ebola
An epidemic of the virus on the other side of the country that began in August 2018 killed more than 2,277 people.
Ryan cautioned that while the number of infections in the new outbreak is low,
“In the era of COVID, it is very important that we do not take our eyes off these other emerging diseases”.
“We saw in North Kivu and other previous outbreaks of Ebola that these can get out of control very easily”
he added.
The use of a vaccine and swift containment efforts including mobile handwashing stations and a door-to-door education campaign is what experts say kept the disease at bay.
Marked as one of the poorest countries in the world,The DRC, aside Ebola is also dealing with a measles epidemic that has killed more than 6,000 people and Coronavirus, which has infected more than 3,000 and killed 188 people.
The WHO described the growing outbreak in Equateur as a “grave” matter given the complex humanitarian crisis in the DRC, with multiple disease outbreaks as well as ongoing clashes between armed groups that have displaced thousands of people in the country’s east.
Source: Aljazeera
