The Ebola outbreak in Congo officially ended according to the WHO

The Ebola outbreak that began in the Democratic Republic of Congo in April was officially declared Tuesday in what appeared to be the double triumph of a new vaccine and an answer. fast.

Only 33 people died, even though the epidemic has reached Mbandaka, a port city of more than a million people. At one point, experts feared that the virus would spread throughout Central Africa. Three years ago, an outbreak of Ebola in West Africa claimed the lives of more than 11,000 people. Health agencies were slow to respond, and no vaccine was available until it was almost finished. The last known case in Congo occurred in early June and the World Health Organization declared that the outbreak was "largely contained" three weeks later. The officially declare it, however, required waiting 42 days, the duration of two periods of viral incubation.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), joined Dr. Oly Ilunga, Congolese Minister of Health. the announcement in the capital, Kinshasa. Tedros thanked "the tireless efforts of local teams, the support of partners, the generosity of donors and the effective leadership of the Ministry of Health" in Congo

WHO, which has been severely criticized for not having reacted in 2015, moved quickly in early May, as soon as a handful of deaths from hemorrhagic fever in Congo were confirmed by the Ebola virus. The organization has released $ 2 million from its emergency fund and sent its first support team to Geneva. On Tuesday, the agency had asked donors for $ 57 million to fight the epidemic, and donations to all entities involved in the containment of the outbreak amounted to $ 63 million. dollars, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The stopping of the 2014-2015 epidemic in West Africa has cost more than $ 3.6 billion to donors, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition, the World Bank calculated that the three countries concerned, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, lost more than $ 2.2 billion in gross domestic product.

Although Congo is familiar with the Ebola virus Since the onset of the disease in 1976, more than 350 support staff have been deployed there. Among them were vaccinators from Guinea, where a new Ebola vaccine was tested for the first time in the field.

The outbreak in Congo marked the first case where an Ebola vaccine was readily available. In addition to giving injections to all front-line health workers, the experts used "ring vaccination" to protect all contacts of each person with the disease. More than 3,300 people were vaccinated

The vaccine, manufactured by Merck and known as rVSV-ZEBOV, must be kept at 80 degrees below zero degrees Celsius, so freezers and advanced storage containers must deployed in Mbandaka and Bikoro. a market town closer to the epicenter of the epidemic.

The outbreak began in the villages of the Ikoko-Impenge region, some of which were accessible only on motorbike or on foot. Four experimental treatments consisting of antiviral drugs or cloned antibodies were also made available, but the outbreak was contained before they could be used. The rapid success against Ebola "should allow the government and partners to be sure that other major epidemics affecting the country, such as cholera and polio, can also be fought," Tedros said. – New York Times