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Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are using to contain the Ebola virus after an infected man belonging to a large family has contaminated several people, fearing that the epidemic will last for two to three years in the country.
"The gold miner … has contaminated several people, but for the moment, there is only his wife and one of his 10 children who are sick," said Friday. Government coordinator for the fight against Ebola.
Muyembe told the miner's wife, who deceased Ebola in eastern DRC, positive test for the disease – the fourth case was confirmed in Goma, capital from North Kivu province, where the epidemic began.
The miner's daughter, aged one year, was confirmed Thursday as having contracted the virus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Friday that seven members of the family of the gold miner had been placed under preventive surveillance in Goma,
On Wednesday, the seven men were scared after leaving Goma to visit the neighboring city of Birava in South Kivu, a province that has escaped the epidemic that has been raging for a year.
"The seven people were vaccinated and brought back to Goma, we put them up in a hotel last night and today we put them in an apartment to keep them there for surveillance purposes," the official said. Dr. Boubacar Diallo, WHO Coordinator for Ebola, at the AFP news agency.
Officials are now trying to find anyone who has had contact with the gold miner.
& # 39; Can last 2-3 years & # 39;
According to Muyembe, about half of Ebola cases – which killed at least 1,823 people since the epidemic began a year ago – were not identified.
"If we continue on this basis, this epidemic could last two or three years," he said at a press conference in Goma.
Report from Nairobi Kenya, Malcolm Webb from Al Jazeera said Muyembe was one of the scientists who discovered the Ebola virus in the DRC in the 1970s.
Webb said that the appointment of Muyembe a week ago as coordinator of the Ebola government response by the DRC government is seen as a "positive gesture: the answer is taken by politicians and given to scientists".
This is the second-worst-ever Ebola outbreak, after an epidemic in West Africa in 2013-2016 infected 28,000 people and killed 11,300 people, mainly Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Last month, WHO made the epidemic a global health emergency.
On Thursday, neighboring Rwanda closed its border with the DRC because of concerns over the spread of the disease, an initiative criticized by health officials.
"When you close the borders, two things happen: first of all, you panic, people see it as a signal to start panicking," spokeswoman Margaret Harris told reporters. from WHO.
"Secondly, people who have symptoms go underground … so we are even less likely to detect where the virus is moving," she said.
The Ebola virus causes fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhea, often followed by kidney and liver failure, making up more than half of the victims.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
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