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The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had a slight presence with regard to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. But now it's changing.
CDC Director, Dr. Robert Redfield, has announced to NPR that it would affect a dozen health experts in the DRC for a year and would position at least some of them closer to the epicenter than previous teams.
The last time the American staff went near the home area was last August. A team of three CDC experts and a USAID staffer arrived in the city of Beni several weeks after the outbreak of the current outbreak. A few days later, one of the many rebel groups active in this part of the Congo attacked a nearby military base.
The US State Department – which is responsible for the safety of all US government employees abroad – immediately ordered the team to leave. And from then on, the State Department limited CDC experts on the Ebola virus to the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, in the west of the country, nearly 2,000 kilometers from the epidemic area in the east. The CDC has also deployed teams to badist officials at the headquarters of the World Health Organization in Geneva.
This approach contrasts with the much larger role of WHO and private aid organizations. They have sent hundreds of health workers to the area of the epidemic, completing thousands of field workers employed by the Congolese government. And these health workers have stayed the course despite repeated acts of violence, including clashes between rebels and government forces, but also direct attacks on the people at the origin of Ebola.
Last month, however, the Médecins sans Frontières aid group suspended its work at the epicenter after armed men attacked two Ebola treatment centers operated by the group.
Redfield, recently released from an information visit to the outbreak zone last week, told NPR that CDC experts can meet a limit when they are physically removed from the hospital. l & # 39; epicenter.
For example, a critical role of the CDC is to provide highly technical training to the Congolese health workers who directly manage the intervention. Redfield says these health workers must be people from the epidemic zone rather than the capital.
"Each of these communities is different – each of these communities speaks many different languages," said Redfield. "And we try to gain the trust of the community, so if I speak English or even one of the languages of the DRC, [capital] region, I am an outsider. We are aware that to train the people who give us the best chance to win the trust of the community, we needed to transfer these training activities to the region. "
This decision was facilitated by the recent decision of the Congolese government to consolidate the coordination of the Ebola response in a new center in the city of Goma. Although the town of Butembo, where the epidemic currently rages, is still about 200 km away, Goma is at least the capital of the province where Butembo is located.
Redfield said he had already received approval from the State Department to send three CDC trainers to Goma. He hopes that they will soon be joined by seven other people.
Equally important, he said, he extended the visits of these CDC experts from 30 days to a year. Up to now, nearly 1,000 people have been infected during the outbreak. "Do not think you're going to sprint until you get here," Redfield said. "It's a marathon, it will take several months before we can celebrate the end."
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