Doctors sound alarm after Ebola kills 15 in the Congo,
At least 15 people have been killed by one of the world’s deadliest diseases in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Officials are desperately trying to contain the killer virus, which began spreading in the southern part of the African nation last month.
Some 28 cases have already been detected, with four health workers among the fatalities.
It marks the 16th outbreak of the deadly virus in a country that has suffered poor health services, and is currently battling conflict in the east.
DRC’s health ministry said officials were alerted after a 34-year-old pregnant woman was hospitalised in Kasai province, which borders Angola, on August 20 with symptoms including high fever and vomiting.
They did not confirm whether she was among the fatalities.
Dr Mohamed Janabi, World Health Organization (WHO) regional director for Africa said the UN agency was ‘acting with determination to rapidly halt the spread of the virus and protect communities’.
WHO experts have now been dispatched alongside Congo’s Rapid Response Team to the province to strengthen disease surveillance, treatment and infection prevention and control in health facilities.
But he warned that ‘case numbers are likely to increase as the transmission is ongoing’.
He added: ‘Response teams and local teams will work to find the people who may be infected and need to receive care, to ensure everyone is protected as quickly as possible.’
The WHO also said DRC had a stockpile of treatments as well as 2,000 doses of the Ervebo vaccine that will be transported to Kasai to vaccinate contacts and frontline health workers.
It will deliver two tons of supplies including mobile laboratory equipment and medical supplies.
Ring vaccination—when cases and their close contacts receive the jab—has previously been highly effective in controlling Ebola’s spread in recent outbreaks.
The last outbreak in DRC was three years ago, killing six people.
But an outbreak between 2018 and 2020 was far deadlier, claiming almost 2,300 lives.
Ebola is an often-fatal viral haemorrhagic fever named after a river in DRC, where it was discovered in 1976.
The virus, which has a fatality rate of 53.6 per cent, is mainly transmitted through exposure to bodily fluids, with the main symptoms being fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhoea.
It naturally resides in fruit bats, monkeys and porcupines living in the rainforest, and can also be transmitted through eating uncooked ‘bushmeat’.
Ebola outbreaks are difficult to contain, especially in urban environments.
People who are infected do not become contagious until symptoms appear, which is after an incubation period of between two and 21 days.
Ebola has never spread between people in the UK.
But it was imported by a healthcare worker returning to the UK from Sierra Leone in 2014, amid intense transmission in West Africa. They fully recovered.
