Congo's Ebola Outbreak Threatens CAR - WHO

There is the high possibility of the Ebola virus spreading into the neigbouring CAR from Congo due to the boundary being shared.

 

File Photo

 

The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday warned that an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo could spread to the neighbouring Central African Republic (CAR).

 Militia violence has forced thousands of people to flee across the border to CAR.

 Two cases of the virus have been confirmed by the WHO in Congo’s remote northeastern Bas-Uele province since early May. Four people have died so far among the 43 suspected and confirmed cases. Experts said that the affected area’s isolation, it is about 1,400 km from the capital Kinshasa, has helped contain the spread of the highly contagious hemorrhagic fever.

 The WHO said, yet recent attacks by Christian militias in CAR’s border town of Bangassou have driven about 2,750 people into Bas-Uele, raising the risk that the Ebola outbreak could spread across the border. “There is a big concern about Ebola spreading to Central African Republic after this displacement,” said Michel Yao, the WHO’s representative in the CAR.

 “We are worried as the refugees are close to the epicenter of the outbreak,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding they could become infected and carry the virus back home. Yao said, while this latest Ebola outbreak is Congo’s eighth, the most of any country, CAR lacks experience in dealing with such an epidemic, and its health system is weak after four years of conflict.

According to aid agencies, more than two thirds of its health facilities have been damaged or destroyed by the violence since 2013, when mainly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power, triggering reprisals by Christian “anti-balaka” militias.

 WHO added that CAR set up an Ebola treatment center and rapid response team following the West Africa epidemic, which killed more than 11,300 people between 2014 and 2016, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

 Yao said: “there is very limited capacity outside of Bangui (the capital) and it is difficult to travel around the country due to the insecurity. “We are concerned about how easily Ebola may spread if it arrives in the CAR.”

 The UN agency said health authorities in Congo are monitoring about 365 people who came into contact with sufferers and have dispatched mobile laboratories to the area to speed up testing of people who display symptoms.

 Asked about the potential for using an experimental vaccine, the WHO on May 19 said the logistics were “complex” but that it was working with Congo’s government and regulatory authorities.

When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)