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DAKAR – Health workers on Wednesday launched a four-day door-to-door blitz to control malaria in the Democratic Republic of Congo in an effort to halve suspected cases of Ebola.
"This will simplify things a lot if malaria is eliminated from the equation," said Stefan Hoyer of the World Health Organization telephone, the epicenter of the epidemic. Ebola in Beni.
The city of Beni, in North Kivu province, which is currently fighting the worst Ebola epidemic in Congo's history, has also seen its number of malaria cases rise eight-fold since last year.
Children who went to health centers for malaria reportedly contracted the Ebola virus in that country, and about half of those screened at Ebola centers had only malaria, said WHO. . If malaria is reduced, health workers will be able to focus on the real Ebola patients and move the others away from the intervention areas.
Ebola has killed 240 people and has infected more than 400 since July, in an epidemic that shows little signs of shortness of breath.
It is spread by contact with body fluids and its symptoms include vomiting, bleeding and diarrhea.
The world's worst epidemic – from 2014 to 2016 – killed more than 11,000 people in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Congo is the second largest country in the world in terms of malaria, behind Nigeria, and Hoyer said there were no more mosquito nets in North Kivu, an eastern province that is struggling both against the conflict and against the disease.
Malaria can usually be diagnosed with a rapid blood test, but the risk of Ebola transmission requires health workers to rely on an assessment of symptoms, he said.
This normally translates into an over-reported number of cases – but not up to eight times, which is 2,000 cases a week, he said.
Starting Wednesday, health workers planned to go door-to-door for four days in the city of Beni, bringing mosquito nets and anti-malarial drugs to 450,000 people, the WHO said.
The goal – to treat people already suffering from malaria and prevent transmission between them in the short term, freeing up resources to focus on the most serious disease, he said.
"We can assume that the suspected cases of Ebola to be treated would be at least halved," Hoyer told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
That's what happened in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, when people with malaria filled the Ebola treatment centers during the 2014 West Africa epidemic, he said. declared.
The current malaria control campaign is modeled on that implemented in Sierra Leone, WHO said.
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