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I spent time on the ground as a doctor and I think health care workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo are among the bravest on the planet.
In addition to rebel attacks and community mistrust, every time it is announced that the DRC Ebola outbreak could be under control, it seems to be spreading with renewed vengeance, sometimes setting daily records.
And Ebola has finally crossed the border into Uganda where authorities have identified more than 100 people who may have been in contact with the disease, including health workers.
EBOLA CAN BE FEARED AFTER MORE THAN 300,000 FLEE CONGO FOLLOWING ETHNIC VIOLENT CONFRONTATIONS: REPORT
In 2014, the Ebola pandemic in West Africa put the world on the edge and claimed the lives of 11,000 people. Health workers did not have access to the basic tools of infection prevention and control, which put their lives at risk.
Ebola deaths were more than 103 times more prevalent among health care workers in Sierra Leone than in the general population, 42 times more among Guinea health workers, and Liberia lost 8% of its affected health workforce by the disease. Why? Partly because health workers did not have adequate resources for hygiene and could not wash their hands properly.
Unfortunately, water, sanitation and hygiene problems persist. This DRC epidemic is now the second longest in recorded history. The main obstacles to controlling this complex epidemic include the lack of sorting and isolation facilities, the lack of protective equipment, the inability to decontaminate and the inadequate waste management. .
In other words, there is still a real problem of access to the foundations of global health: WASH in health facilities.
In the DRC, 49% of health facilities have no water service and 59% do not have sanitation services. A new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF sets a first-ever global benchmark for the availability of WASH in health care facilities, based on data from from 125 countries.
The findings are alarming: 2 billion people have access to health care facilities without basic water services, while 1.5 billion people have health care facilities that lack sanitation.
Preventing and containing epidemics – and providing adequate health care – is impossible without safe drinking water, soap and toilets.
These circumstances represent a global threat of their own. Disturbingly, WASH is an area where global health policy continues to fall behind.
There is no doubt that the Ebola epidemic in the DRC has become increasingly complex, but the global health community needs to focus not only on the immediate problem, but also on the fundamental weaknesses that exist. hinder the prevention and containment of a range of potential pandemic diseases, such as MERS. Nipah virus, Lassa haemorrhagic fever, Rift Valley fever and Zika, as well as resistance to Ebola and antibiotics.
For these viruses, as well as for a host of more common infections, better hygiene is the most powerful and cost-effective way to prevent and contain diseases, protect vulnerable newborns and immunosuppressed prevent human-to-human transmission, avoid antibiotic resistance and stop global pandemics.
Getting WASH in health facilities is a problem that can be solved. When I was the Senate Majority Leader, I drafted a bill to formalize US policy to address the overall lack of clean water and sanitation in developing countries.
Along with Democratic Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, Democratic Leader, we have adopted Senator Paul Simon's "Water for the Poor Law" (named in honor of our longtime WASH colleague and champion) with strong bipartite support. WASH has become for the first time one of the goals of US foreign aid.
US engagement alone can not be the answer, of course, but an emerging global collaborative effort between the public and private sectors to integrate WASH into health care institutions is emerging.
In the United States, 80 private donors and non-governmental organizations have announced commitments on new funding, technical assistance, research and evaluation activities, maintenance training and advocacy $ 120 million.
In September, a global event on WASH care in health care facilities will be held in Zambia, organized by WHO and UNICEF, to focus on action at the country level. and global work plans.
And recently, the 194 WHO member states (including the United States) have adopted an important resolution of the World Health Association, marking the first time countries join together to recognize this global crisis of health and begin the next steps.
The time has come to make our words come true and to move this global resolution forward with concrete plans and actions. From health security to economic security, it is in our country's interest to raise this issue and intensify its efforts. And that's the right thing to do. So, let's take these next logical steps.
The United States Agency for International Development must continue to emphasize the fundamental importance of WASH in all of its work (in accordance with the 2017 World Water Strategy) and to adopt an agency-wide policy that WASH should be available in all health facilities where the agency is active. This will require coordination between the water and global health teams.
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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should ensure that WASH in health facilities is integrated with existing programs for the preparation, prevention and control of pandemic diseases.
Which brings us back to the DRC. This is the ninth epidemic of Ebola in the DRC since 1976. So far, nearly 2,400 people have been infected – including 126 health workers – and more than 1,600 people have died. . The epidemic is threatening neighboring Burundi, Rwanda and South Sudan, and has entered Uganda. This epidemic should be a hard reminder that pandemics do not know borders and that investing in prevention is the best cure.
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