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KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of the Congo – Ebola, the deadly virus that has increasingly struck Africa in recent years, once again threatens a region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ravaged by violence, three months after health authorities in the countries declared the last epidemic defeated.
The health ministry said on Sunday that the wife of a farmer who survived the disease died on February 3, three days after showing symptoms for the first time, in a hospital in Butembo, a town of 700. 000 inhabitants of the province of North Kivu. A blood test on the woman in Butembo tested positive for the virus, the ministry said.
The World Health Organization said in a statement that its epidemiologists were investigating, that more than 70 contacts of the victim had been identified and that disinfection was underway at sites she was known to have visited.
It was not immediately clear whether the victim’s infection could be attributed to the Ebola outbreak that devastated North Kivu for almost two years from August 2018. It killed more than 2,000 people.
The outbreak, which was declared last June, was the 10th and second worst on record in the country, punctuated by recurring rebel violence in the region and attacks on health workers. As it dwindled, an eleventh epidemic was declared in the west of the country, killing 55 people and declared defeated last November.
The WHO statement said blood samples from the woman who died on February 3 had been sent to the main laboratory of the National Institute for Biomedical Research in Kinshasa for genome sequencing to identify the strain of the virus that killed her.
News of the infection has come as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, like much of Africa, grapples with new waves of infection with the coronavirus, which has already strained health resources public.
While it is too early to assess the severity of the new Ebola outbreak, humanitarian groups operating in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have said they fear the worst due to its history of outbreaks since the discovery of Ebola in 1976, when the country was known. like Zaire. The latest outbreak is believed to be the fifth in the past four years in the country, which is more than three times the size of Texas.
“We know Ebola is endemic in this region, but we cannot take anything for granted and we must act quickly to stop the spread,” said Whitney Elmer, director of operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for Mercy Corps, the international charity.
Despite the development of Ebola vaccines in recent years, it remains one of the deadliest and most contagious viruses. Most cases are caused by human-to-human transmission through contact with bodily fluids or secretions from an infected person. The risk of infection remains high after death, which means the bodies of victims should be handled by people wearing protective gear and should be buried immediately.
The worst Ebola epidemic in history struck West African countries Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone from March 2014 to June 2016. More than 28,000 people were infected and more than 11,000 have died.
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