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KINSHASA, Congo (AP) – A second person, who died on Wednesday of the Ebola virus in the crossroads of the Congo, Goma, fears that the virus will spread beyond the borders of the country while the epidemic begins in a second year.
The man may never have known he had Ebola and was contagious for days before the disease was confirmed, officials said, alarming some in the city of more than two million people at the Rwandan border, with an international airport.
"Death in such a densely populated center highlights the very real risk of further transmission of the disease, perhaps beyond the country's borders, and the very urgent need for more comprehensive support," he said. United Nations agencies in a joint statement marking the year of the outbreak. . More than 1,800 people died, nearly a third of them children.
The man in his forties was a miner returning home from a region in north-eastern Ituri province where no case of Ebola was recorded, the press reported. the World Health Organization. He was exposed to the Ebola virus somewhere along the road from Komanda to Goma (490 kilometers) while he was taking a multi-day motor cab in the densely populated area at the heart of the epidemic. Michael Ryan said.
The man arrived in Goma on July 13 and began showing symptoms on July 22. He was isolated in an Ebola treatment center on Tuesday. He had spent five days being cared for at home, then went to a health facility where there was suspicion of an Ebola infection.
"He may not have even been aware of his exposure," said Ryan, adding that his potential contacts were being identified and receiving an experimental but effective Ebola vaccine. Symptoms such as fever can be confused with malaria, which is endemic in the region.
Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the new coordinator of the Congo response, said the man had died Wednesday morning, a day after the announcement of his case.
"Yesterday he was in critical condition," Muyembe told The Associated Press. Symptoms of the Ebola virus can begin to appear between two and 21 days after infection, according to health experts.
Muyembe said that there seemed to be no connection between the case and the previous case in Goma announced two and a half weeks ago.
The second Ebola outbreak, the deadliest in history, has been declared a rare global health emergency just days after the confirmation of the first case in Goma, a scenario that health officials have long feared.
Muyembe, in announcing the second case of Goma, told reporters that the home of this man and the health center that he had visited for the first time were being disinfected.
"There is no need to panic," he said. On Wednesday, he told reporters that he thought the outbreak could be over in three or four months.
The WHO Regional Director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, however, said that Ebola infection was entering its second year, that is, the virus would spread again in a or several of Congo's nine neighboring countries.
In June, three people died in Uganda before other family members were brought back to Congo for treatment and the Ugandan authorities declared the country to be free from the disease again.
The WHO says the risk of regional spread remains "very high." Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan began vaccinating health workers weeks or months ago.
The declaration of a global health emergency – the fifth in history – has resulted in a multi-million dollar increase in new contributions from international donors, but some health workers believe that a new approach is necessary to fight misunderstandings within the community.
There is no authorized treatment for Ebola, which is spread through close contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, and survival can depend on seeking treatment as quickly as possible. And yet, many people in the region who had never experienced an Ebola outbreak before do not believe the virus is real, health workers said.
The United Nations Joint Statement on Ebola is relentless and devastating because it is pbaded on "from mother to child, from husband to wife, from patient to caregiver, from the corpse of a victim to a bereaved loved one. most bbad aspects of everyday life down. "
The first confirmed case of Ebola in Goma was a 46-year-old preacher who had managed to pbad three health checkpoints from Butembo. The city is one of the communities hardest hit by this epidemic, which is the second to the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which has done more 11,300 dead.
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Anna brought back from Johannesburg. The badociate editor of Al-Hadji Kudra Maliro, a contributor to the press, contributed to this report.
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