[ad_1]
Uganda and neighboring countries face increasing risk as Trump blocks US experts
Kampala, Uganda | AGENCIES | One of the largest Ebola epidemics in history shows no signs of slowing down – and the Trump administration has banned US health experts who want to help at the epicenter of the epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo to go to this region.
Heads of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) worked in Beni; the city that caused the outbreak in eastern DRC for a few days in late August and early September. Experts say the response to infectious diseases is an unusually short period. CDC deployments usually last at least four weeks and many last for several months.
Then, the White House National Security Council (NSC) coordinated a government security risk review, which included representatives of several government agencies and departments. The review determined that CDC officials could not return to areas where militant attacks threaten security, including Beni. On October 14, the media announced for the first time that the United States had withdrawn from the region.
"It's unprecedented that the CDC's expertise is not central to the answer because that's what has been done for other epidemics," Vox told Stephen Morrison, expert on global health in the think tank of the Washington Center for Strategic and International Studies. . "We have CDC staff members who are veterans of nearly two dozen outbreaks."
Other people working in the field to stop the Ebola outbreak, which caused 251 cases and 127 deaths by October 26, said they did not notice the short presence of the CDC. A senior humanitarian official not affiliated with the Trump administration told Vox that he thought the CDC experts were never in Beni.
Another senior non-administrative humanitarian officer added that although America has vehicles on the ground in the city, they are not being used.
"These three armored vehicles of the US Embassy installed in the UN parking lot in Beni for two months have never moved," said the official.
However, CDC officials insist in their conversations with Vox that its experts were working in Beni.
The relatively lukewarm reaction of the United States, as the epidemic continues, affects former CDC officials and experts in global health.
"I fear that, in the worst case, tens of thousands of people will no longer declare themselves," said Daniel Bausch, director of the British public health rapid assistance team, "as well as than the complete destabilization of an already unstable region. "
It's an "unprecedented" answer – in a bad way
Tom Frieden, the former CDC official who responded to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa from 2014 to 2016, said it was "unusual" and "not optimal" that CDC experts do not work at the epicenter of the disease.
Others are in agreement: DRC health workers and other people on the ground who are fighting the Ebola outbreak do not win the match ", said Morrison. "They must have on the field all the competent players, experienced and able to solve these problems."
The epidemic began in July and has worsened in recent weeks after a series of violent attacks against civilians by Congolese rebels who have temporarily interrupted the public health intervention .
A CDC spokesman said his staff were in Kinshasa, 1,000 km from the outbreak zone, "in early September," where they continue to support the response. But before that, the CDC's involvement in eastern DRC was unusually limited.The CDC said its director, Robert Redfield, was in Beni for a day, while other staff members did not want to be involved. were there only "several days".
Redfield reportedly told a reporter that he wanted CDC officials on the ground in eastern DRC to help with the response to the outbreak, but that he was overwhelmed by concerns from security.
"Stakeholders (Ebola) are extremely disadvantaged by CDC's lack of expertise in the field," he said, adding that he would be "happy" to go there to help.
To date, only 18 CDC staff members are deployed overseas to help fight the Ebola virus. Not everyone is in the DRC (outside the epicenter of the epidemic). They are distributed in Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan and Sudan. Switzerland too.
The CDC wants to be in Beni. The administration says it's too risky.
The argument for keeping the US health authorities out of eastern DRC is this: it's a dangerous area and nobody wants to put the US authorities in danger.
Source link
