[ad_1]
(Update of the number of victims of the epidemic, addition of death during the Ebola center attack)
By Tom Miles
GENEVA, March 14 (Reuters) – The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is now concentrated in two areas and could be halted by September, but the country also needs to address the epidemic. helps to solve his larger health problems, said the head of the World Health Organization Thursday.
The epidemic, the second-worst in history, reportedly killed 587 people in an area plagued by violence and poverty. A rapid international response has so far prevented the disease from spreading to neighboring countries.
"We have avoided a much more serious epidemic," Tedros Ghebreyesus Adhanom, chief of WHO, told a press conference adding that the affected area was confined and dwindling.
"Our goal now is to finish it six months from now."
Since January, the number of new cases has been reduced by half, to 25 per week. The virus was now concentrated in Butembo and Katwa. However, community mistrust and attacks by armed groups hindered the response.
On Thursday, a group of young men attacked an Ebola center for the fifth time since last month, the Congolese Ministry of Health said after doctors tried to take samples from a suspected man's body. death of the virus.
Police opened fire to disperse the crowd in the health zone of Biena, west of Butembo, killing one person and wounding another, the ministry said in a statement.
Last week, the head of the MSF medical charity, which had two attacked facilities, said that the battle against Ebola was being lost as ordinary citizens did not trust health workers and that the answer was too militarized.
Tedros, who has just returned from the epidemic zone, said that the local population was desperate and was rightly wondering why the world was so driven by Ebola when he cared so little about other problems including cholera and malaria.
"In fact, I would like to ask the international community to badociate the control of epidemics with the development of the health system," he said.
"It's a big challenge. Otherwise we will have the impression that we are preventing the Ebola virus from spreading to other countries and that we do not care about the demands of the community. "
He added that the WHO would not leave after the end of the epidemic, but would help the government to strengthen health services.
He called on international donors to fund the $ 148 million plan to fight Ebola in the next six months, a small expense compared to the potential cost. The worst epidemic, which claimed the lives of 11,300 people in West Africa in 2013-2016, cost about $ 53 billion, according to a study. (Report by Tom Miles Additional report by Fiston Mahamba in Goma, Giulia Paravicini in Brussels and Aaron Ross in Dakar Edited by Alison Williams and Frances Kerry)
Source link
