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The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo killed 1,705 people between April and July 18, according to the latest figures provided by the DRC Ministry of Health.
So far, 2,532 cases of Ebola have been reported in the epidemic that mainly affects the north-east of the country.
According to Doctors Without Borders, a non-governmental organization for international humanitarian medicine, the epidemic is by far the largest epidemic of Ebola ever recorded in the country.
It is also the second largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded, behind the West Africa outbreak of 2014-2016, where 28,616 cases and 11,310 deaths have been reported in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. .
An additional 36 cases and 15 deaths were reported following the spread of the disease in Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Spain, the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy.
The African Union has announced that it will deploy more experts in response to the Ebola crisis.
At a press conference held Friday at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, John Nkengasong, director of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, announced that they reactivate the African Voluntary Health Corps and deploy it not only in the DRC but also in other countries in the region.
The body of health is a team of 800 epidemiologists, anthropologists as well as experts in communication, laboratories and logistics from different African countries who are waiting for an emergency deployment.
"The army corps have been very effective in response to the 2014 outbreak in West Africa.We hope they will also be very useful in the current outbreak." Nkengasong said.
Nkengasong said that the decision to deploy the army corps had been dictated by the statement of the World Health Organization, describing the epidemic "outbreak of" state of affairs. public health emergency of international concern.
"It is a statement that is made when an event is extraordinary, serious, and can potentially overtake the country in which it is located and have a regional or international effect from a public health point of view," she said. he declared.
Nkengasong has described insecurity and attacks on health centers and health care providers as major challenges in the affected provinces.
He said the AU would engage the UN security system to improve the security of experts and facilities. They will also engage the Peace and Security Council of the AU.
"We will work very closely with the DRC government to better coordinate our efforts with other partners such as the WHO," he added.
Doctors Without Borders has recommended that Ebola-related activities be integrated into the existing health care system in order to improve the proximity of services to the community and to ensure that they remain functional during the epidemic.
To strengthen the response to the Ebola outbreak, the AU plans to purchase and provide additional equipment and supplies, strengthen cross-border surveillance and laboratory systems, and propose a new outreach approach at the global level. Community.
The surveys suggest a possible start to the epidemic in May 2018. However, delay in alerting and subsequent intervention can be attributed to several factors, including a failure of the surveillance system and a strike health workers from the region, which started in May, due to non-payment of wages.
Surveillance measures at the borders of Rwanda and Uganda have been strengthened to prevent the spread of the virus.
The Botswana Ministry of Health announced Friday that it will continue to monitor the situation in the DRC as well as throughout the region, in consultation with the WHO country office.
However, some fear that the situation will become difficult if the disease spreads to Southern Sudan, whose health system has been weakened by the long civil war.
The country has sent a health team tasked with strengthening surveillance at one of the busiest border posts, Kayain State, Central Equatorial Region, where a case has been confirmed, such as l 'équ Kay,,,,,,,,,,,. reported Associated Press.
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