Ebola victim may have entered Rwanda and Uganda

World Health Organization officials said a fishmonger who died of Ebola this week may have transmitted the Congo virus to Rwanda and Uganda.

Health workers now have trouble finding the people that a woman could have infected.

According to WHO, the woman vomited several times at Mpondwe, a market across the Ugandan border, on July 11.

She died a few days later from the Ebola virus in Congo, but spent time in the same market, according to a report from the Ugandan Ministry of Health.

The Ugandan Ministry of Health also said it was suspected that the woman had gone to Goma and Gisenyi in Rwanda to do business.

This scenario creates a state of anxiety among Rwandans and Ugandans at a time when the Ebola outbreak is becoming a public health emergency.

Public health emergency

The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that the Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo was a public health emergency of international concern.

This is the second most serious Ebola outbreak of all time in DR Congo.

The decision to declare the epidemic a public health emergency of international concern was taken several months after the WHO refused, despite calls for health experts.

World Health Organization President Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on countries to "take action and redouble their efforts".

WHO defines the Public Health Emergency of Public Concern (PHEIC) as "an extraordinary event that is considered to pose a public health risk to other states as a result of the international spread of the disease and potentially coordinated international response ".

Up to now, there have been more than 2,500 cases of infection.

Nearly 1,670 people died in the provinces of Ituri and North Kivu, where several armed groups and lack of local trust hampered efforts to control the epidemic.

Source: Africafeeds.com