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The second largest ebola epidemic in history is spreading rapidly in major cities in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and experts fear that the current stock of vaccine is not enough to contain the epidemic. epidemic.
Butembo, a town of more than one million inhabitants in North Kivu province, bordering Uganda, has registered its first cases of ebola deaths. According to Médecins Sans Frontières, the number of new cases is increasing in the eastern suburbs and in the most remote rural districts.
The new outbreak of Ebola was reported on August 1, about a week after the start of the war. country said the end of a 10-week epidemic in the northwestern region, which made 33 deaths.
International health organizations are worried that the virus has crossed the north of the country. Congo is bordered by nine countries.
The first cases of the new outbreak were reported in the Beni area, about 60 km from Butembo, and in the stronghold of an Islamist militia linked to Uganda, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF ).
It is already the second most important epidemic in history, with 494 registered cases, including 446 confirmed, including 235 deaths, according to a report released Monday by the Congo Ministry of Health .
Loses only the Ebola outbreak that hit the West African region, including Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, between 2014 and 2016, leaving more than 28,000 people infected, including 11,300 dead.
To contain the disease, the Democratic Republic of the Congo used an experimental vaccine developed by Merck. Even with the experimental vaccine, the Congolese authorities' ability to vaccinate people with the Ebola virus is causing concern.
virus in the most populated areas. Merck said it has a stock of 300,000 vaccines and that a new batch would take months to prepare.
For the moment, vaccination concerns only health workers, people who have had direct contact with the victims or live in the interior. an area close to a confirmed case, a strategy to try to contain the contamination.
The head of the WHO (World Health Organization), Peter Salama, warns that tactics do not work when there is an epidemic in cities like Butembo . but the Democratic Republic of Congo does not have the resources to expand immunization to a larger number of the population, about 81 million people.
The attacks of the Allied democratic forces hinder the containment of the disease. The US Center for Disease Control (CDC), which was actively fighting the outbreak, left the scene after a warning from the US state department on insecurity.
This also disrupts the difficulty of access to information and fear of diagnosis, which in practice means going into a total isolation protocol, including the removal of the family. Humanitarian aid organizations, such as the Red Cross, have come together to conduct a national campaign to alert the disease and its spread. In many cases, the body of victims is contaminated – the Ebola virus remains contagious for a short time after the death of the infected.
Congo has already suffered ten Ebola outbreaks since the discovery of the virus in the country, in 1976. One of the most dreaded diseases in the world is hemorrhagic fever caused by viruses that, in cases extreme, cause fatal bleeding in the internal organs, mouth, eyes or ears. The average death rate is about 50%, ranging from 25% to 90%, according to WHO.
The virus has a natural reservoir in a frugivorous bat species from tropical Africa, from which it is thought that it jumps in the eyes of humans who kill animals for food. Human-to-human transmission then occurs through close contact with the blood, body fluids, secretions, or organs of someone who has been infected with Ebola or recently died.
Facing the course of the disease, neighboring South Sudan is due to launch on Wednesday (19) a national vaccination campaign against the disease, according to the WHO, given the high risk of contamination. First, health officials will be vaccinated. In Uganda, vaccination has begun.
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