WHO says no global emergency will occur after the spread of the Ebola outbreak in Uganda

According to the World Health Organization, the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo does not pose an international threat, despite the spread of the virus in neighboring Uganda, carried by a family infected.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director of the United Nations and DRC health agency examining the response to the Ebola virus, said the situation was nonetheless very serious.

"Although the epidemic is not currently a threat to global health, I want to stress that for the families and communities affected, it is an emergency," he said. he told the press.

Friday 's emergency committee meeting was motivated by confirmation this week of the death of Ebola in a western region of Uganda' s border DRC.

There have been more than 2,000 cases of Ebola, including more than 1,400 deaths, since its appearance in eastern DRC in August.

Although a new vaccine has been developed and administered to more than 130,000 people in the DRC, the efforts of the medical teams to distribute it have been hampered by the violence of the militias in the region.

Case of Uganda
The cases in Uganda come from a Congolese woman, married to a Ugandan woman, who accompanied her mother, three children and their nanny to the DRC to care for her sick father, who later died of the Ebola virus.

The WHO reported that 12 family members who had attended the Congo burial had been placed in solitary confinement in the DRC, but that six of them "escaped and went to Uganda. "June 9th.

The next day, a five-year-old boy pbaded away. The tests confirmed that he had Ebola and that the family had been placed in an isolation room.

His three-year-old brother was also confirmed to have Ebola, as did their grandmother, who died Wednesday night.

Josephine Okwera, director of health services and social services of the Ugandan Red Cross, told AFP that it was difficult to manage the porous border with the DRC.

"People continue to enter the country and do not go through the areas where the screening takes place, because screening has been instituted along certain points of entry, but not on all points", she said.