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Reuters DAKAR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Health workers on Wednesday launched a four-day door-to-door blitz on malaria control in the Democratic Republic of Congo 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 in Ebola centers had only malaria, the WHO said . 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 worst epidemic in the world – 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 mosquito nets left 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.Speech
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