More than 1,600 people have died since this Ebola outbreak was detected in August last year. The arrival of the disease in Goma, a city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo of more than one million inhabitants, very close to the border with Uganda, has led the World Health Organization to declare an international health emergency .
It is the first time that Ebola, one of the deadliest diseases known, affects an area at war, so the WHO has already warned that it is unlikely that the outbreak will be contained unless the violence ceases.
HOW MANY TIMES HAS THE GLOBAL "EMERGENCY" BEEN DECLARED?
The UN health agency has only used this global emergency declaration four times. The previous ones were the H1N1 flu, or swine flu , in 2009; the spread of the polio virus in 2014; the previous Ebola epidemic that affected much of West Africa (Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, in particular) between 2014 and 2016; as well as the great push of the Zika virus , also in 2016.
TENTH OUTBREAK
This is the tenth outbreak of Ebola in the Congo (and the second largest in the world) since the virus was discovered in 1976 , following several outbreaks in villages in Sudan and the Congo (then Zaire). Since then there have been about 30 outbreaks of the disease, almost all in the African continent.
According to the latest data from the Congolese Ministry of Health, a total of 2,512 cases -2,418 confirmed and 94 probable- and 1,676 deaths from this outbreak have been detected to date .
WHY IS IT SO LETHAL THIS TIME
The current outbreak, declared in August 2018, began, as it has happened before, with the handling of infected bushmeat. Since then, violence between armed groups and the army in the Congo has forced doctors who fight against the disease on many occasions to have to suspend their activities, which causes an increase in the number of infections. The war has also left thousands of displaced people who are very difficult to provide assistance.
According to the WHO, since January 198 attacks on health facilities have been recorded , with 85 workers injected, and seven of them dead. "Each attack makes it more difficult to draw contacts, vaccinate and carry out burials," denounces the Director General of the WHO, Tedros Adhano. Oxfam points out that mistrust in local communities continues to be a major obstacle in stopping the deadly disease, as many people, out of religious beliefs or fear of foreign 'agents', avoid being treated because they do not believe that Ebola is real.
2015: THE NIGHTMARE
The worst Ebola epidemic in the world, an "unprecedented outbreak", according to Doctors Without Borders, began in Guinea in December 2013 and spread through Liberia and Sierra Leone, killing more than 11,300 people and infecting more than 28,500.
It spread through large cities, devastated entire communities and severely affected the health systems and economies of the three countries. In addition to these three countries, cases were registered in Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, Italy, the United Kingdom and Spain. In January 2016 WHO declared the end of the epidemic.
SYMPTOMS AND TRANSMISSION
Ebola causes fever, flu-like pains, bleeding, vomiting, diarrhea and spreads among humans through contact with the fluids of an infected person. Outbreaks have a case-fatality rate of between 50 to 90%.
THERE IS HOPE?
In 2015, a vaccine against Ebola was started in uninfected people in direct contact with the virus. Last year it was delivered in the Congo to try to cope with the current outbreak with a "ring" approach, which involves vaccinating the closest people (friends, relatives, companions) of suspected cases of Ebola. More than 10,000 people have already been vaccinated in Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan.
The Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, announced in early May changes in the response to the disease. One of these changes would be to start vaccinating pregnant and lactating women , even if they have not had direct contact with a patient.
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