WHO envisions global health emergency following Ebola outbreak in DRC

Geneva (AFP) – The World Health Organization announced Monday that its experts would meet this week to determine whether an Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo was a health emergency. World.

The head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, convened an "emergency committee" on the current epidemic in the violence-ridden North Kivu region in the DRC, which killed 135 people since the month of August, announced the UN health agency in a statement.

"The committee will meet in Geneva on October 17 to determine if the epidemic is a public health emergency of international concern," the statement said.

In the language of the WHO, "a public health emergency of international concern" is an "extraordinary event" in which a disease can spread across borders and requires a vigorous international response.

The agency has for the first time appealed to the emergency mechanism in 2009 when a new strain of influenza, called swine flu H1N1, appeared.

It was also declared twice in 2014, when polio re-emerged after the disease was almost completely eradicated and an Ebola outbreak hit three West African countries.

Then, in 2016, a global emergency was declared in response to a Zika virus outbreak.

Monday's announcement was made after DRC Health Minister Oly Ilunga warned over the weekend that a second wave of the Ebola virus had been confirmed in the US. epidemic in North Kivu, home to many armed groups.

He added that the second wave resulted from community resistance to measures taken to combat the disease, calling the epidemic "high risk".

"The situation is worrying," he said.

Fears and misconceptions about the virus have led to widespread mistrust and resistance to workers in the Ebola response, including those arriving in communities dressed in protective clothing suits. to orchestrate the burials.

A member of the UN peacekeeping mission, MONUSCO, was one of the latest victims of the virus, the UN and DRC ministries of health said.

The last outbreak – the 10th in DR Congo since the discovery of the Ebola virus in 1976 – currently has 211 confirmed and probable cases of the virus, including 135 deaths.