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The World Health Organization has called for an intensification of the response to the growing Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including increased assistance from United Nations peacekeepers, rebel violence and other barriers preventing health workers from stopping the spread of the virus.
The UN agency for public health (UN) did not declare Wednesday that it was a global public health emergency, a designation that, 39, after some experts in global health, would have helped to mobilize more help and attention on an epidemic that has been raging for three months in the country. and densely populated in the northeast, which borders several other African nations.
A WHO committee of international health experts said the epidemic did not fully meet emergency declaration criteria because it has not yet reached Congo's borders and governments international organizations and humanitarian organizations react. The committee was also concerned that an emergency declaration could trigger restrictions on trade or travel to the Congo, said Robert Steffen, chairman of the committee and a professor at the University of Zurich. "We thought there was really no added value," he said.
The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, attends a press conference in Geneva on 17 October. The US body said the Ebola outbreak in Congo was not a global public health emergency.
Photo:
fabrice coffrini / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images
The outbreak, which was detected in early August, turns out to be one of the most dangerous outbreaks of Ebola. Lawrence Gostin, Professor of Global Health Law at Georgetown University, has participated in the WHO Emergency Committees. Responses must include safety in addition to public health measures, he said.
"The WHO has neither the mandate nor the expertise to deal with the security threats," he said. "The United Nations must train and deploy peacekeepers in support of a public health mission."
The decision not to declare a global public health emergency was "a missed opportunity," he said.
In Congo, health workers are struggling to reach patients in areas attacked by rebels, vaccinating at-risk individuals, and implementing secure burial protocols that prevent the spread of the virus. And the violence of the armed groups has forced the US government to remove staff from its homes, including Ebola experts from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in recent weeks. US personnel are still involved in the epidemic in other parts of the Congo.
According to WHO, out of 216 people infected with the Ebola virus, 139 died. The Ebola virus, which causes fever, diarrhea, vomiting and internal bleeding, is spread by bodily fluids, including cadavers.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the agency had recently briefed the UN Security Council and was waiting for "more responses" from Monusco, the UN peacekeeping mission for the UN. Congo. The WHO has more than 250 experts deployed in the Congo, he said, and is able to fill the void left by the American experts who had to leave.
Concerns about the possibility of controlling the epidemic have increased rapidly as the areas of Ebola virus spread have been attacked by the rebels.
A resurgence of new infections last week – with 33 new cases confirmed versus just six the previous week – was concentrated in the city of Beni, whose population of about 300,000 was terrorized by rebel groups fighting against each other. the government. Hundreds of civilians have been killed in the city and surrounding areas since 2014, including during machete attacks and beheadings.
An attack on September 22 in Beni by allied democratic forces, a militia of Ugandan Islamist origin, killed around 20 people, mostly civilians, and forced health organizations to temporarily suspend work there.
A confirmed Ebola patient fled to an area outside Beni controlled by local May Mai rebels. On Wednesday, the Congolese government said it had reached an agreement with the leaders of the group, giving the response teams access to the area and allowing them to vaccinate the combatants and members of the community.
"These are local bandits who live in the community and are at risk of contracting the Ebola virus themselves," said Information Minister Lambert Mende.
In addition to the threat of local militias, health workers sent to teach local communities to protect themselves from the virus, including avoiding contact with corpses and seeking treatment for fever, have experienced unusually high levels of resistance. high. Some were hunted or their vehicles were covered with stones, humanitarian organizations said.
Humanitarian workers have said that large-scale violence has made many residents suspicious of strangers. "So many civilians have been killed in Beni … because of different armed groups," said Heather Kerr, director of Save the Children Congo. "They feel like they have not been helped."
According to WHO, more than 18,000 people have received the experimental Ebola vaccine, making it by far the largest vaccination campaign ever organized against the virus. In addition, 75 infected persons received experimental treatments.
-Gabriele Steinhauser
contributed to this article.
Write to Betsy McKay at [email protected] and Nicholas Bariyo at [email protected]
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