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Ebola Spreads in Congo Refugee Camps, Cases Top 1,000

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The Ministry of Health for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) said on Sunday that over 1,000 cases of Ebola have now been confirmed, with 254 deaths.

At least 30 of those fatalities occurred in a single camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the northeastern Congo, increasing fears that Ebola will run wild in crowded and unsanitary refugee camps.

The good news from the DRC Ministry of Health was that 100 people have recovered from Ebola infections – an encouraging recovery rate for the deadly disease amid conditions of poverty, insurgent conflict, and public distrust of health officials. The ministry said at least 365 patients were currently receiving treatment in hospitals and isolation wards.

The worst of the bad news came from the Kigonze refugee camp near Bunia, capital of Ituri province, which is the epicenter of the Ebola Bundibugyo outbreak.

The Kingonze camp has about 15,000 residents, and according to administrators, many of them have refused to be tested for Ebola. At least 30 people have died since the beginning of May after exhibiting symptoms consistent with Ebola, and given the resistance to testing, officials simply have no idea how many people are infected. (Read more from “Ebola Spreads in Congo Refugee Camps, Cases Top 1,000” HERE)

Africa CDC Warns Congo Ebola Outbreak Could Be Worst in History

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Jean Kaseya, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control (Africa CDC) warned on Tuesday that the current outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) could become the worst ever recorded since so many of the people who came into contact with Ebola victims have yet to be traced and tested.

“If we don’t stop the outbreak very soon it will ​be worse than what ​we had in West Africa and eastern ‌DRC,” said Kaseya. The West Africa outbreak in 2014 killed over 11,000 people, while the 2018 outbreak in the Congo claimed almost 2,300 victims.

According to the latest update from the DRC health ministry, the current outbreak of the Ebola Bundibugyo strain includes 782 cases and 181 fatalities, which would not seem to be in a league with the horrifying death tolls from 2014 or 2018. However, one of the biggest problems with the current outbreak is that cases have been very difficult to diagnose and track due to political instability in the outbreak region and an often-uncooperative population.

Health officials fear the true number of cases and deaths could be much higher than the figures confirmed so far and, while the outbreak was officially declared one month ago, it began weeks or months before that.

On the matter of the uncooperative population in the eastern Congo, a gang of unknown assailants wielding bladed weapons reportedly removed a woman and her six-year-old daughter from a treatment center on Tuesday. It was the latest instance of people in the outbreak region using force to retrieve living or dead Ebola patients from isolation areas because they mistrust medical personnel, insist on performing their own funerals for the dead, or believe Ebola is caused by witchcraft. (Read more from “Africa CDC Warns Congo Ebola Outbreak Could Be Worst in History” HERE)

Nobody Panic (Yet) — W.H.O Fears Ebola May Be Spreading Faster and Further Than First Thought

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As the world watches the Ebola outbreak which has claimed 131 lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a World Health Organization (W.H.O). representative warned Tuesday the deadly malady may be disseminating faster than first thought.

W.H.O. representative Dr Anne Ancia told the BBC the more the agency investigates, the clearer it becomes that cases have spread to other areas at a scale and speed not previously predicted..

Officials said more than 513 cases were suspected in DR Congo as of Tuesday, while one person has died in neighbouring Uganda.

The emergence of cases in urban areas, the deaths of healthcare workers, significant population movement in the area and a lack of vaccines and therapeutics are the main cited reasons for growing fears, AP reports.

The warning comes after W.H.O. chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the outbreak a global emergency last week and said he was “deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the epidemic,” as Breitbart News reported. (Read more from “Nobody Panic (Yet) — W.H.O Fears Ebola May Be Spreading Faster and Further Than First Thought” HERE)

Country Confirms Ebola Resurgence, Declares New Epidemic

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Health officials in Guinea on Sunday confirmed that at least three people have died from Ebola there, the first cases declared since it was one of three West African nations to fight the world’s deadliest Ebola epidemic that ended five years ago.

An additional four people are confirmed with Ebola, according to a statement from the ministry of health. All seven positive cases attended the funeral of a nurse in Goueke on Feb. 1 and later showed Ebola symptoms including a fever, diarrhea, vomiting, said the ministry statement.

The government has declared an Ebola epidemic and started contact tracing and isolating suspected cases. It’s also sent an emergency team to support local teams in Goueke and has accelerated the procurement of Ebola vaccines from the World Health Organization. (Read more from “Country Confirms Ebola Resurgence, Declares New Epidemic” HERE)

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Congo Is Battling Coronavirus, Measles and a New Ebola Outbreak

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Health officials have confirmed a second Ebola outbreak in Congo, the World Health Organization said Monday, adding yet another health crisis for a country already battling COVID-19 and the world’s largest measles outbreak.

Congo also has yet to declare an official end to Ebola in its troubled east, where at least 2,243 people have died since an epidemic began there in August 2018.

Now Congolese health authorities have identified six cases including four fatalities in the north near Mbandaka, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. . .

This announcement marks the 11th time that Ebola has hit the province since the virus was first discovered in Congo in 1976. Just two years ago an outbreak killed 33 people before the disease was brought under control in a matter of months. . .

While Ebola and COVID-19 have drawn far more international attention, measles has killed more Congolese than those diseases combined. WHO said there have been 369,520 measles cases and 6,779 deaths since 2019. (Read more from “Congo Is Battling Coronavirus, Measles and a New Ebola Outbreak” HERE)

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ISIS Activity Imperiling International Efforts to Contain Largest Ebola Outbreak Ever

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. . .One of the most active areas for the Ebola outbreak has been Oicha, which is in the Beni region. But ADF is killing just as many civilians as Ebola is in the area now known as the “triangle of death.” . . .

As a result of these attacks, UN estimates say that more than one million people in the area have been displaced and are in transit between the Congo and Uganda, Rwanda, and South Sudan.

Because of the concern about the disease “walking” across these various borders, WHO has started to prepare by vaccinating in South Sudan — another country that has been devastated by militias and violence in recent years (hundreds of thousands have been murdered). Vaccination programs were already initiated earlier in Uganda in an attempt to contain the disease.

Specifically, foreign aid workers, priests, and government officials have been kidnapped and held for ransom. Because of the targeting by ADF, the area is now a “no-go” zone for many aid agencies that would otherwise be working to contain the Ebola epidemic.

In one case in Oicha back in August, an infected doctor was in an area entirely surrounded by ADF, hindering treatment and thereby allowing more to be potentially exposed to the disease. (Read more from “ISIS Activity Imperiling International Efforts to Contain Largest Ebola Outbreak Ever” HERE)

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New Ebola Outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo Kills 17, Said to Have ‘International Impact’

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By The Blaze. . .Two out of five samples collected from patients were confirmed to have tested positive for Ebola, which the DRC reported to the World Health Organization. With a fatality rate of fifty percent, WHO is mobilizing to act quickly to address the outbreak of the virus. The organization released $1 million from a Contingency Fund for Emergencies in order to help stop the spread.

WHO deputy director-general for emergency preparedness and response, Dr. Peter Salama, said, “Our top priority is to get to Bikoro [a neighboring province] to work alongside the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and partners to reduce the loss of life and suffering related to this new Ebola virus disease outbreak.

“Working with partners and responding early and in a coordinated way will be vital to containing this deadly disease.” Doctors Without Borders is one of the organizations who will assist the WHO, and the response will be modelled after the methods used in a 2017 Ebola outbreak that occurred in another DRC province.

Since 1976, this is the ninth outbreak of Ebola in Congo. The virus is highly contagious and can cause organ failure as well as internal and external bleeding.

The WHO Regional Director for African, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, said, “We know that addressing this outbreak will require a comprehensive and coordinated response. WHO will work closely with health authorities and partners to support the national response. We will gather more samples, conduct contact tracing, engage the communities with messages on prevention and control, and put in place methods for improving data collection and sharing.” (Read more from “New Ebola Outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo Kills 17, Said to Have ‘International Impact’” HERE)

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New Outbreak of Ebola Kills 17 in Northwest Dr Congo

By AFP. Seventeen people in northwest Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have died from Ebola, the health ministry said on Tuesday, describing the fresh outbreak as a “public health emergency with international impact.”

“Twenty-one cases of fever with haemorrhagic indications and 17 deaths” have been recorded in Equateur province, it said, citing a notification to the ministry as of May 3.

It is the DRC’s ninth known outbreak of Ebola since 1976, when the deady viral disease was first identified in then-Zaire by a Belgian-led team.

In Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO) said lab tests in the DRC confirmed the presence of Ebola virus in two out of five samples collected from patients.

“WHO is working closely with the government of the DRC to rapidly scale up its operations and mobilize health partners, using the model of a successful response to a similar… outbreak in 2017,” it said in a statement. (Read more from “New Outbreak of Ebola Kills 17 in Northwest Dr Congo” HERE)

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Mystery Deaths Spread Fear of Ebola Relapses

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A poster in Sierra Leone’s crumbling coastal capital Freetown proclaims a message from an Ebola survivor called Sulliaman: “I feel 100 percent healthy!” Another beaming survivor Juliana says: “I am one of the safest people to be around!”

Throughout the two-year Ebola epidemic, thousands of West African survivors have been shunned by their communities, prompting governments to sponsor messages stressing their complete recovery in a bid to counter fear and paranoia.

But the case of Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey – the first known Ebola survivor to have an apparently life-threatening relapse – has revived concerns about the health of some 17,000 survivors in Sierra Leone, neighboring Guinea and Liberia.

Doctors and health officials in Sierra Leone told Reuters that a handful of mystery deaths among discharged patients may also be types of Ebola relapses, stirring fear that the deadly virus may last far longer than previously thought in the body, causing other potentially lethal complications.

Diagnoses have not been made, partly because of a lack of relevant medical training and insufficient equipment for detecting a virus that can hide in inaccessible corners of the body – such as the spinal fluid or eyeball. In Cafferkey’s case, the virus in her brain caused meningitis. (Read more from “Mystery Deaths in Sierra Leone Spread Fear of Ebola Relapses” HERE)

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How a Woman’s Ebola Relapse Tears up Everything Doctors Thought They Knew

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Since 1976, when the Ebola virus was first identified, doctors racing to remote villages in African forests have thought they had a reasonable idea of what those infected were facing. The disease was grim – a hemorrhagic fever which caused copious bleeding and often death – but some people could and did fully recover. Now that is in question.

When nurse Pauline Cafferkey was admitted back into the infectious diseases unit of the Royal Free hospital in London on 9 October, nine months after recovering from Ebola, and then became critically ill, all the previous assumptions about the long-term effects of this virus had to be torn up.

Doctors and scientists are amazed and appalled. It is horrible for Cafferkey and her family, but the implications of her new illness are much more wide-reaching. The UK has a world-class health service. Cafferkey’s family were angry that the possibility that her symptoms were linked to Ebola was not immediately picked up, but even though she did not have the usual fever and vomiting, within days the virus had been identified once more and she had been flown to specialised care.

But a resurgence of illness that did not look like classic Ebola in survivors in countries with fragile or collapsed health systems, such as Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea or – for that matter – DRC or Uganda, which have had outbreaks in the past, would not have been recognised. It is entirely possible that people have died from Ebola complications unnoticed, months after their initial recovery, and more could still die.

Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at Nottingham University, is one of those who admits to real surprise. There are a lot of unknowns about Ebola, he said, “but I don’t think anybody would for one minute have expected complications quite as serious as they certainly appear. (Read more from “How a Woman’s Ebola Relapse Tears up Everything Doctors Thought They Knew” HERE)

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Sierra Leone Ebola Lockdown Exposes Hundreds of Suspected Cases

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Pedestrians walk past a sign reading "Ebola disease outbreak" outside the Ministry of Finance in MonroviaA three-day lockdown in Sierra Leone has exposed hundreds of potential new cases of Ebola, aiding efforts to bring to an end an epidemic that has already killed 3,000 people in the country.

Officials ordered the country’s 6 million residents to stay indoors or face arrest during the period that ended late on Sunday as hundreds of health officials went door-to-door looking for hidden patients and educating residents about the virus.

Reports to authorities of sick people increased by 191 percent in Western Area, which includes the capital, during the lockdown compared with the previous weekend, said Obi Sesay of the National Ebola Response Center.

“Tests are being carried out on their blood samples, and the results will be in by Wednesday,” Sesay said, adding that 173 of the patients in Freetown met an initial case definition for Ebola. (Read more from “Sierra Leone Ebola Lockdown Exposes Hundreds of Suspected Cases” HERE)

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