Today's Edition
KINSHASA (AFP)
The World Health Organisation on Tuesday voiced concern about the “scale and speed” of an Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 130 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and warned it could be prolonged.
The UN health agency has declared the surge of the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever in the east of the country an international health emergency.
No vaccine or therapeutic treatment exists for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola which is responsible for the outbreak.
Ebola has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa in the past half-century.
Workers with shovels were seen digging to clear an abandoned Ebola treatment centre in the eastern city of Goma.
“We are currently spreading sand and preparing the site to help care for people affected by Ebola virus disease,” said Philippe Jamaica, who was supervising the work.
Tonnes of emergency medical supplies, including infection prevention kits and tents, as well as experts have arrived in recent days, local WHO footage showed.
With the recent cases largely concentrated in difficult-to-access areas hit by long-running conflicts, a few samples have been laboratory-tested and figures are mostly based on suspected cases.
Congolese Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba told reporters on Tuesday that there had been 136 deaths suspected to be linked to Ebola, and about 543 suspected cases, calling for international aid to help combat the spread.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was "deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the epidemic" while the agency's representative in the DRC said a vaccine candidate called Ervebo was being considered.
But Anne Ancia said it would likely take at least two months to be available, adding: “I don't think that in two months we will be done with this outbreak.”
The DRC's deadliest Ebola outbreak, between 2018 and 2020, claimed nearly 2,300 lives from 3,500 cases. The east is a gold-mining hub with people regularly crisscrossing the region.
The virus has already spread into neighbouring provinces, as well as beyond the DRC's borders into Uganda.
The Ebola outbreak is the 17th in the vast central African country of more than 100 million people.
Vaccines are only available for the Zaire strain of the disease, which has caused the biggest recorded outbreaks. The Bundibugyo strain has previously been responsible for outbreaks in Uganda in 2007 and in the DRC in 2012. The mortality rate was 30 to 50 percent.
Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi on Tuesday urged citizens to keep “calm” and take precautions.
US Screening
The government in neighbouring Uganda said two Ebola cases -- one infection and one death -- had been recorded there, involving Congolese nationals who crossed the border.
Germany, meanwhile, said on Tuesday it was readying to receive and treat a US citizen who has contracted the virus -- a doctor from an American Christian NGO.
The United States announced it was screening air passengers from outbreak-hit areas and temporarily suspending visa services.
It also urged citizens to avoid travel to the DRC, South Sudan,and Uganda, and to consider travel to Rwanda.
