The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has declared an Ebola outbreak in its territory.
The DRC health officials on Saturday declared an outbreak of Ebola after a case was noted in Mbandaka, a city in the north-western Equateur Province. This is the third outbreak since 2018.
According to the World Health Organization, a 31-year-old man began experiencing symptoms on April 5 and, after more than a week of care at home, sought treatment at a local health facility.
On April 21, the patient was admitted to an Ebola Treatment Centre for intensive care but died later that day. Having recognised the symptoms, health workers immediately submitted samples to be tested for Ebola virus disease. Investigations to determine the source of the outbreak are ongoing.
“Time is not on our side, “said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Director for Africa.
Intervention measures
“The disease has had a two-week head start, and we are now playing catch-up. The positive news is that health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have more experience than anyone else in the world at controlling Ebola outbreaks quickly.”
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is experiencing its fourteenth Ebola outbreak since 1976. The current outbreak is the sixth since 2018 alone – the most frequent occurrence in the country’s Ebola history. Previous outbreaks in Equateur Province were in 2020 and 2018, with 130 and 54 recorded cases, respectively.
WHO experts based in DRC are supporting the national authorities to ramp up key outbreak response areas, including testing, contact tracing, infection prevention and control, and treatment, as well as working with communities to support public health measures to prevent infections.
Vaccination is set to kick off in the coming days. The country already has stockpiles of the rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine available in the cities of Goma and Kinshasa.
“Many people in Mbandaka are already vaccinated against Ebola, which should help reduce the impact of the disease,” said Dr. Moeti
He added that all those who were vaccinated during the 2020 outbreak will be revaccinated.