The Ebola virus claimed more than 11,300 lives in West Africa when it swept through Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in the 2013-2016 outbreak. Now there are concerns of a new outbreak of the virus with news of its spread to Congo, with health officials now confirming a 2^nd outbreak in the Equater province.

The most recent outbreak is largely confined to Guinea, in West Africa. Three people have died from the virus so far, forcing the government to declare an Ebola epidemic. A total of seven patients fell ill after attending the burial of a nurse, reporting symptoms of diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding, leading to the three deaths. The health ministry said all cases were adults over the age of 25 and that contact tracing was ongoing despite the cases being isolated.

Neighbouring countries have been put on heightened alert after fears the outbreak could spread between areas such as Liberia and Sierra Leone, which have relatively weak healthcare systems.

Eastern Congo also confirmed the discovery of the virus at the beginning of February, as three cases were identified.

The outbreak in 2013 was catastrophic; nearly 30,000 people across the three nations were infected with the disease, which is spread via contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids. From its epicenter in West Africa the epidemic reached Nigeria, Spain, the US and UK, only slowing in June 2016 when the WHO declared the outbreak in Liberia over.

World Health Organization officials have confirmed that newly developed vaccines will be acquired through them. A treatment centre is set to be set up in Geoueké for patients. Officials are testing a number of Ebola treatments but none are licensed yet.

In December 2016 a team in Guinea announced that a new and effective vaccine had been developed however it has not yet been approved by any regulatory bodies. The experimental vaccine has been shown to provide 100 per cent protection against the disease as it was used in the dying days of the last outbreak.

Already a stockpile of 300,000 doses of the medication has been built up should an outbreak flare up again.

Adapted from dailyexpress

LT

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The death toll from the contagious Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has risen to 979 since the start of an outbreak last July, according to an official statement on Tuesday.

The Health Ministry of the Central African country said among 1,572 cases of reported hemorrhagic fever, some 1,506 were confirmed to be Ebola cases.

Nearly 90 people are being treated for the disease, while 439 have recovered from the virus.

Some 66 people died following the hemorrhagic fever, but it could not be verified whether they died of Ebola.

As part of a campaign initiated in 2018, a number of 111,920 people were vaccinated against Ebola.

Ebola, a tropical fever which first appeared in 1976 in Sudan and the DRC, can be transmitted to humans from wild animals.

It can also reportedly spread through contact with body fluids, infected persons or of those who have succumbed to the virus.

Ebola caused global alarm in 2014 when the world’s worst outbreak began in West Africa, killing more than 11,300 people and infecting an estimated 28,600 as it swept through Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

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At least 33 people have been infected with the deadly Ebola virus in the past week, 24 of which have since passed away, the health ministry of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) said.

According the ministry, the cases were discovered between October 8 and October 14.

So far, 211 confirmed and probable cases of Ebola have been reported since early July, when the latest outbreak of the disease started, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

Of those, 138 people have passed away from the highly deadly hemorrhagic fever.

All cases have been found in the northeastern region of the central African country, the WHO has stated.

The latest Ebola outbreak started in July and could go on for another three or four months, the WHO has said.

In recent weeks the rate of new Ebola cases has more than doubled after rebel violence in northeastern DRC caused response efforts to be briefly suspended, health officials said earlier this week.

Most of the new cases have been in Beni, a city of several hundred thousand people where experts had to suspend Ebola containment efforts for days after a deadly rebel attack killed 21.

The Congolese army has blamed the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a notorious rebel group, for that attack.
With multiple armed groups active in the region, health officials have said they are effectively operating in a war zone.

In a response to the violence, the government said it would deploy security forces to protect teams transporting the bodies of Ebola victims for burial

Earlier this week, the WHO noted that all of the health workers who have caught Ebola in this epidemic – 19 so far – have been infected outside of hospitals or clinics, meaning that the virus is spreading in the community.

Following the rapid increase in cases in northeastern DRC, the WHO also warned the disease might spread to neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda, adding that those countries are well prepared but have not yet approved the use of a vaccine.

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At least 17 people have died in an area of northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where health officials confirmed an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus.

Congo’s ministry of health said in a statement on Tuesday that two cases of the virus have been confirmed by laboratory tests following 21 patients displaying signs of hemorrhagic fever in Ikoko Impenge, near the town of Bikoro, in the central African nation.

Health officials took samples from five suspected Ebola cases in Bikoro, in Equateur Province, to be tested at the Institut National de Recherche Biomedicale in the capital, Kinshasa, it added.

At least 17 deaths in the region over the past five weeks are suspected to be linked to the outbreak, but have not been confirmed as Ebola cases.

“Our country is facing another epidemic of the Ebola virus, which constitutes an international public health emergency,” Congo’s health ministry said.

The deployment of “well-trained human resources” was made to “rapidly control” the outbreak, it said.

Ebola, which has no proven cure, killed more than 11,300 people in West Africa from 2013-16 as it swept through Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.

International response
The average fatality rate among those infected with the Ebola virus is about 50 percent, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

WHO said in a tweet on Tuesday it received confirmation of the outbreak from Congo officials after two out of the five samples analysed in Kinshasa tested positive for Ebola.

A team of WHO experts – alongside regional health officials and staff from international medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) – are travelling to Bikoro as part of a coordinated medical response.

WHO released $1m from its contingency fund for emergencies to help Congo contain the virus.

“WHO is closely working with other partners, including MSF, to ensure a strong response to support the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to prevent and control the spreading of the disease from the epicentre,” said Dr Allarangar Yokouide, WHO’s representative in Congo.

How Ebola is contracted
The latest cases come less than a year after the Congo’s last confirmed Ebola outbreak in May 2017, during which eight people were infected, four of whom died.

Ebola, discovered in 1976, is contracted by humans through contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals, typically fruit bats, chimpanzees, gorillas and monkeys.

The virus, which can cause multiple organ failures, is passed human-to-human by contact through the mouth, nose, or broken skin with blood or other bodily fluids of those infected.

Early symptoms of Ebola include fever, muscle pain, and fatigue followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, rashes and bleeding – both internal and external – apparent in the gums, eyes, nasal passages and faeces.

Ebola takes its name from Congo’s Ebola River, a tributary of the River Congo.

Source – Al Jazeera

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