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The new cases bring the total number of HCWs infected with this outbreak to 131, including 41 deaths. Health workers account for 5% of all victims of this epidemic, according to data from the DRC. The World Health Organization (WHO), however, in its latest update to Disease Outbreak News, estimates 132 the number of infected health workers.
Nurses are the first victims of the disease
WHO has also provided new epidemiological details on infected health workers.
Of the 128 health workers for whom information is available, the largest proportion is among health workers in [poste de santé] (20%, n = 26) and private health facilities (35%, n = 45). Three health workers – including two vaccinated – are among the latest cases of Ebola, according to the report released yesterday by the Ministry of Health in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Health workers come from Beni, Katwa and Kalunguta. The Ministry of Health said the unvaccinated worker was from Kalunguta and died at a community health center there. They are among the nine cases that DRC officials confirmed yesterday.
The majority (68%, n = 87) of infections among health workers involved nurses, "said WHO.
Today, the DRC is expected to confirm 14 new cases, bringing the total epidemic to 2,451 cases, according to the WHO Ebola Dashboard. Yesterday, the DRC confirmed that a new health zone, Mambasa, in the province of Ituri, was affected, where a mother and her 8 year old son died as a result of the disease.
Yesterday, the authorities confirmed 1,646 deaths and 358 suspected cases still under investigation.
Re-emerging hot spots
Although transmission rates remained stable throughout June and July, WHO noted that old hot spots were associated with an upsurge in cases.
"There has been an increase in the number of cases in Beni and a continuing high incidence of cases in parts of the Mabalako health zone," said WHO. "In addition to these re-emerging hot spots, a large number of people with confirmed and probable infections are moving to other health areas, the largest number coming from the Beni Health Zone."
The re-emergence of the Ebola virus in communities is likely due to a very transient population, said WHO, with infected people moving into the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri.
"The high rates of population movements from areas affected by epidemics to other parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and through the porous borders of neighboring countries during periods of heightened insecurity further exacerbate these risks" , added the WHO.
US experts call for PHEIC
Once again this week, Ebola experts called on WHO to resume the designation of an international public health emergency (PHEIC) for this outbreak. Ronald Klain, the American tsar Ebola during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa from 2014 to 2016, and Daniel Lucey, MD, wrote in the Washington Post that a PHEIC would put an end to the "global complacency" observed in this epidemic.
"In the absence of a trajectory to extinguish the epidemic, the opposite path – a steep escalation – remains possible.The risk of transmission of the disease to Goma, Congo, city Nearly one million inhabitants with an international airport platform – or traveling to the huge refugee camps in South Sudan are multiplying.With a limited number of doses of vaccine remaining, it would be a disaster, "they write.
WHO experts have refused three times this year to label the epidemic as PEHIC, mainly because they would do little to stop the epidemic, but further paralyze the already limited economy of the DRC.
Klain and Lucey suggest that if a person designated by the PHEIC is "fair or unfair", it would ultimately increase preparedness activities in neighboring countries and encourage the United States to play a more active role in controlling the situation. # 39; outbreak.
See also
July 10 DRC report
July 11 News on disease outbreaks at the WHO
WHO Ebola Dashboard
July 10 Washington Post article
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