Ebola outbreak spreads to isolated militia-controlled territory in Democratic Republic of Congo

A new case of Ebola has appeared in an isolated area controlled by militias in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, hundreds of kilometers from the epicenter of the epidemic that plagues since a year.

The patient is a 70-year-old woman living in Pinga, a rural village in the Walikale territory of North Kivu province, according to a recent statement from the technical committee responsible for the country's response to Ebola and reporting directly to the president. . The woman has been hospitalized in Pinga since 13 August and placed in solitary confinement on 15 August. His blood samples were sent to a laboratory in Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, and were declared positive for the Ebola virus in August. 17

A rapid response team was sent on Sunday and took the road to reach Pinga a day later. A team of helicopters also arrived on Monday in the village, according to the technical committee, which described Pinga as "an insecure area and low coverage of the telephone network".

Walikale is a mineral-rich territory that is largely controlled by a faction of the Mai-Mai armed group. The region is isolated and difficult to access because of its poor roads and dense forest. The village of Pinga has been the scene of frequent attacks by the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, a notorious rebel group known by the acronym FDLR.

This is the first case of Ebola to have been recorded in this part of North Kivu province, far from the previous cases concentrated near the country's eastern border with Uganda and Rwanda. . Pinga is about 150 km northwest of Goma, a major city and transport hub near the Rwandan border where the virus was infected last month. current epidemic.

The virus spread to the Walikale territory just days after case confirmation in a third province, South Kivu.

According to the latest data published by the technical committee, a total of 2,888 people reported symptoms of haemorrhagic fever in the provinces of North Kivu (eastern North Kivu), the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and since then in South Kivu. On August 1, 2018. Of these cases, 2794 were tested positive for Ebola virus disease, which causes a type of hemorrhagic fever often fatal and is spread by contact with blood or secretions of an infected person.

The current epidemic has a case fatality rate of about 67%. There have been 1,938 deaths so far, including 1,844 people following confirmed Ebola cases. The remaining deaths come from probable cases. According to the technical committee, fewer than 900 people with the virus have recovered to date.

An experimental vaccine against the Ebola virus developed by the US pharmaceutical group Merck and developed during the 2014-2016 West Africa epidemic has been approved for use in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Congo a week after the outbreak of the epidemic last year. The experimental vaccine has been administered to over 198,000 people in the current outbreak area since August 8, 2018.

Meanwhile, two of the four experimental treatments tested during the outbreak are now being offered to all patients after showing that they could save lives. Preliminary results from a randomized controlled trial that began last November in four Ebola treatment centers in North Kivu indicate that patients receiving one of two antibody-based treatments, called REGN-EB3 and mAb114, were more likely to survive than those receiving two treatments. other experimental drugs, called ZMapp and remdesivir

After a meeting to review the initial results, an independent monitoring committee recommended that all future patients be offered REGN-EB3 or mAb114, while the other two treatments would be discontinued.

"From now on, we will no longer say that Ebola is incurable," Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director general of the National Institute for Biomedical Research of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), told reporters. who co-sponsored the clinical study a phone briefing last week.

The epidemic continues to spread, with an average of 81 new Ebola cases confirmed each week, according to the World Health Organization, the United Nations body for global health in charge of health, which said last month the current outbreak of international emergency.

This is the second most deadly and deadliest Ebola outbreak in the world. It is also the 10th outbreak of the disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the worst since 1976, when scientists identified the deadly virus near the Ebola River.

The Director General of the WHO described the current outbreak as being more complex than the most deadly epidemic of 2014-2016 in several West African countries because political instability of the region, attacks of health agents, a highly mobile population, mistrust and misinformation of the community. This is the first outbreak of Ebola to occur in an active war zone.