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| Ebola Crisis | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: 23 Mar 2014, 12:52 AM (2,811 Views) | |
| skibboy | 23 Mar 2014, 12:52 AM Post #1 |
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22 March 2014 Guinea deaths: Ebola blamed for deadly fever outbreak ![]() Ebola was first identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976 The Ebola virus has been identified as the cause of an outbreak of haemorrhagic fever now believed to have killed nearly 60 people in southern Guinea, government officials say. Scores of cases have been recorded since the outbreak began early last month. There is no known cure or vaccine for the highly contagious Ebola virus. It is spread by close personal contact with people who are infected and kills between 25% and 90% of victims. Symptoms include internal and external bleeding, diarrhoea and vomiting. Outbreaks of Ebola occur primarily in remote villages in Central and West Africa, near tropical rainforests, the World Health Organization says. Analysts suggest it has never been recorded in Guinea before. Recent years have seen outbreaks in Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo. 'Overwhelmed' "We got the first results from Lyon yesterday (Friday) which informed us of the presence of the Ebola virus as the cause of this outbreak," Guinean health ministry official Sakoba Keita told AFP. "The Ebola fever epidemic raging in southern Guinea since 9 February has left at least 59 dead out of 80 cases identified by our services on the ground." "We are overwhelmed in the field, we are fighting against this epidemic with all the means we have at our disposal with the help of our partners but it is difficult." Medical aid charity Medecins sans Frontieres said on Saturday it would strengthen its team in Guinea and fly some 33 tonnes of drugs and isolation equipment in from Belgium and France. Dr Armand Sprecher, an emergency physician and epidemiologist working with MSF in Guinea, told the BBC that doctors had to identify all patients with the disease and monitor anyone they had been in contact with during their illness. The latest outbreak could be brought under control if people acted quickly, he said. "Based on our history with these sorts of outbreaks it will happen. Ideally, sooner rather than later," said Dr Sprecher. "The more quickly we can contain this the fewer cases we'll have, then the smaller the scale of the epidemic. That's the idea of going in as strong as we can early on." Source:
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| skibboy | 21 May 2018, 12:03 AM Post #376 |
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DR Congo to start vaccinating against Ebola after four new cases![]() © Junior Kannah, AFP | Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) team members walk through an Ebola security zone at the Wangata Reference Hospital in Mbandaka, in northwest DR Congo on May 20, 2018. 2018-05-20 DR Congo will begin administering an experimental Ebola vaccine Monday in Mbandaka, the northwestern city of 1.2 million where the deadly disease has infected some residents, the country's health minister announced. "The vaccination campaign begins tomorrow, Monday, in Mbandaka, capital of the province. It will target, first, the health staff, the contacts of the sick and the contacts of the contacts," Minister of Health Oly Ilunga told The Associated Press Sunday. The death toll of the current Ebola outbreak has risen to 26. Initially, the campaign will target 600 people, mainly medical staff, contacts of suspected cases, and those who have been in contact with the contacts, said Ilunga. Officials are working urgently to prevent the disease from spreading beyond Mbandaka, which lies on the Congo River, a busy traffic corridor, and is an hour's flight from the capital. More than 4,000 doses are already in Congo and more are on the way, according to officials. The vaccine is still in the test stages, but it was effective in the West Africa outbreak a few years ago. A major challenge will be keeping the vaccines cold in this vast, impoverished, tropical country where infrastructure is poor. Four new cases have been confirmed as Ebola, said the health ministry in a statement released early Sunday. A total of 46 cases of hemorrhagic fever have been reported, including 21 confirmed cases of Ebola, 21 probable and four suspected. Congo President Joseph Kabila and his Cabinet agreed Saturday to increase funds for the Ebola emergency to more than $4 million. The Cabinet also endorsed the decision to provide free health care in the affected areas and to provide special care to all Ebola victims and their relatives. Risk of Ebola spreading 'very high' The spread of Ebola from a rural area to Mbandaka has raised alarm as Ebola can spread more quickly in urban centers. The fever can cause severe internal bleeding that is often fatal. The risk of Ebola spreading within Congo is "very high" and the disease could also move into nine neighboring countries, the World Health Organization has warned. The WHO, however, stopped short of declaring the outbreak a global health emergency. WHO said there should not be restrictions to international travel or trade. While Congo has contained several Ebola outbreaks in the past, all of them were based in remote rural areas. The virus has twice made it to Kinshasa, Congo's capital of 10 million people, but was effectively contained. The outbreak was declared more than a week ago in Congo's remote northwest and its spread has some Congolese worried. "Even if it's not happening here yet, I have to reduce contact with people. May God protect us in any case," Grace Ekofo, a 23-year-old student in Kinshasa, told AP. Schools in Mbandaka are implementing preventive measures by instructing students not to greet each other by shaking hands or kissing, said teacher Jean Mopono, 53. "We pray that this epidemic does not take place here," Mopono said. The WHO appears to be moving swiftly to contain this latest epidemic, experts said. The health organization was accused of bungling its response to the earlier West Africa outbreak the biggest Ebola outbreak in history which resulted in more than 11,000 deaths. There is "strong reason to believe this situation can be brought under control," said Robert Steffen, who chaired the WHO expert meeting last week. But without a vigorous response, "the situation is likely to deteriorate significantly," he said. This is Congo's ninth Ebola outbreak since 1976, when the disease was first identified. The virus is initially transmitted to people from wild animals, including bats and monkeys. It is spread via contact with bodily fluids of those infected. There is no specific treatment for Ebola. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain and at times internal and external bleeding. The virus can be fatal in up to 90 percent of cases, depending on the strain. Source: .com
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| skibboy | 22 May 2018, 12:42 AM Post #377 |
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Ebola outbreak: Experimental vaccinations begin in DR Congo 9 hours ago ![]() The vaccines were first used in a limited trial during the 2014-16 West Africa Ebola outbreak Health workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo have begun an immunisation campaign in an attempt to halt the spread of an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus. The experimental vaccine proved effective when used in limited trials during the epidemic which struck West Africa in 2014-16. At least 26 people are believed to have died in the current outbreak. Health workers were among the first to receive the vaccine on Monday. What is Ebola? It is an infectious illness that causes internal bleeding and often proves fatal. It can spread rapidly through contact with small amounts of bodily fluid, and its early flu-like symptoms are not always obvious. More than 11,300 people died in the earlier outbreak in 2014-16. How serious is the current outbreak? At least 45 cases of Ebola have been reported, including three health workers, since the outbreak began earlier this month. The virus has already spread from rural areas to the north-western city of Mbandaka, a major transport hub on the River Congo, where at least four cases have been confirmed. This has sparked fears that the outbreak could reach the capital, Kinshasa, as well as neighbouring countries. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said it has "strong reason to believe that the outbreak can be brought under control". At an emergency meeting, on Friday WHO experts said that "the conditions for a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) have not currently been met". What do we know about the medicine being used? The vaccine, made by pharmaceutical firm Merck, is not yet licensed, but was effective in limited trials during the West Africa outbreak. Dr Michel Yao, from the WHO, told the BBC that the vaccine had been tested in Guinea and that "almost all of the people who were vaccinated could not get the disease". The WHO has sent more than 4,000 doses to the Democratic Republic of Congo, with another batch set to follow. Health care providers and funeral workers are being vaccinated initially, before the programme is extended to more than 500 people who may have come into contact with those infected with the virus, in a so-called "ring vaccination". What are the challenges? One of the most immediate obstacles to the immunisation campaign is the country's unreliable electricity supplies, as the vaccine needs to be stored at a temperature of between -60 and -80 C. Initial stocks of the vaccine have arrived in Mbandaka city, but they must now be transported through densely forested areas to reach remote rural areas where many cases have been reported. A further issue is that, as the vaccine has not yet been approved, its use is dependent upon informed and signed consent from all patients. This means that translators will need to be brought in to aid communication between health workers and local communities. Life in the Ebola zone One teacher in the region told the BBC's Newsday programme that people had stopped shaking hands when they greet. Ziko Ilema said: "I tried to greet a friend by shaking hands and he said: 'No, did you forget that Ebola is here?' "They forbid people to greet by using hands, eating animals from the forest, and people are now living with fear." Ebola is thought to be spread over long distances by fruit bats and is often transmitted to humans eating contaminated bushmeat - meat from wild animals such as monkeys or antelopes. Was bushmeat behind the 2014 Ebola outbreak? Bars, restaurants and offices in Mbandaka have started to provide soap and basins of water for people to wash their hands as a way to prevent the spread of the disease, according to the AFP news agency. It also reports that officials are using infrared thermometers at the city's river ports to scan travellers in case they have a fever. "But we don't have enough of the thermometers, so people are crowding up and getting annoyed," said Joseph Dangbele, an official at the private Menge port. Health Minister Oly Ilunga has announced that all healthcare in the affected areas would be free. This is the ninth outbreak of Ebola in DR Congo - it was named after the country's Ebola river. Source: .com
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| skibboy | 23 May 2018, 01:39 AM Post #378 |
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Anthropologists heading to DR Congo to ease Ebola vaccination![]() © AFP/File | Nurses working with the World Health Organization (WHO) prepare to administer vaccines at the town all of Mbandaka on May 21, 2018 during the launch of the Ebola vaccination campaign GENEVA (AFP) - African health authorities said Tuesday they are preparing to send anthropologists to Democratic Republic of Congo to ensure a vaccination campaign against a deadly Ebola outbreak runs smoothly. "If we do not handle communication well, the vaccination programme may suffer," John Nkengasong, head of Africa Centres for Disease Control (Africa CDC), told reporters in Geneva. "So we are also assessing how in the next two weeks or so to deploy anthropologists to support the vaccine efforts," he said. His comments came a day after the Congolese government began using a prototype vaccine as part of a bid to contain and roll back the outbreak that has killed 27 people. So far, there have been 51 cases since the outbreak was declared on May 8, it said. Of these, 28 cases have been confirmed, 21 are probable and two are suspected. One of the world's most notorious diseases, Ebola is a virus-caused haemorrhagic fever that in extreme cases leads to fatal bleeding from internal organs, the mouth, eyes or ears. The outbreak began in rural northwestern DR Congo in a remote location called Bikoro. Last Thursday, a first case was reported in Mbandaka -- a city of around 1.2 million people that lies on the Congo River, where it is a transport hub to Brazzaville and Kinshasa downstream and to Bangui, upstream. "We continue to be very concerned," Nkengasong said. He said Africa CDC was in the process of deploying 25 epidemiologists to the affected areas to assist the World Health Organization, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and others trying to stem the outbreak on the ground. He said China's CDC had also said it would send five staff, and the US CDC had also indicated it was prepared to send in staff to help. But he acknowledged it remained unclear whether people on the ground would follow instructions on how to best protect themselves and others against the deadly virus. Nkengasong said Africa CDC was closely following how people reacted to the vaccination efforts to determine how many anthropologists were needed. "We will be looking ... especially based on what we learn from the first week of vaccination what numbers will be appropriate," Nkengasong said. During the deadliest-ever Ebola outbreak, which killed more than 11,300 people in three West African countries from 2013-2015, an initial lack of understanding of cultural norms by the first responders fuelled suspicion on the ground. Many people refused to follow best-practice instructions for reining in the outbreak. "We are dealing with human behaviour," Nkengasong said, adding: "That is why we think that having anthropologists associated with Africa CDC's response is very critical." Source: .com
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| skibboy | 23 May 2018, 01:44 AM Post #379 |
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22 May 2018 Superstition stopping Ebola victims from seeking medical care ![]() © AFP | Believing Ebola is a curse some victims in DR Congo are refusing help in medical centres, instead turning to churches or pastors who claim they have healing powers MBANDAKA (DR CONGO) (AFP) - Health workers fighting Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo have run into an invisible but powerful hurdle -- a belief system that deems the disease to be a curse or the result of evil spirits. Some people are refusing medical care and turn instead to preachers and prayers to chase away the threat, they say. The pastor of an evangelical church last Wednesday died several days after he "prayed" for an Ebola victim who went to him for help, a doctor said. "Some sick people believe that the Ebola epidemic comes from sorcery -- they refuse to be treated and prefer to pray," said Julie Lobali, a nurse on the front line against the DRC's ninth Ebola outbreak. She is working in a hospital in Mbandaka, a port city on the Congo River in northwest DRC where the first urban case was reported last Thursday. Since the outbreak was declared in the remote area of Bikoro on May 8, 51 cases of Ebola have been reported with 27 deaths. One superstition that has become prevalent in the city, she says, is believing that Ebola began in Bikoro as "a curse on those who ate stolen meat" -- a wild animal hunted in the countryside. Blandine Mboyo, who lives in Mbandaka's district of Bongondjo,told AFP "a hunter put a curse on the village because his big game was stolen." "This curse is so powerful because it hits those who ate this meat, having heard about the theft or having seen the stolen animal," added Nicole Batoa, a local vendor. Another resident, Guy Ingila, observed that officials have said on the radio "this disease is incurable... It's because it's about witchcraft.". For doctors and health officials these beliefs raise serious concerns, complicating efforts to contain and roll back the deadly Ebola virus. In Geneva on Tuesday, African health officials said they were preparing to send anthropologists to the DRC to help with an Ebola vaccination campaign. A prototype vaccine will first be given to frontline health workers and then to people who have been in contact with Ebola cases. "If we do not handle communication well, the vaccination programme may suffer," John Nkengasong, head of Africa Centres for Disease Control (Africa CDC), told reporters in Geneva. "So we are also assessing how in the next two weeks or so to deploy anthropologists to support the vaccine efforts." - 'Bad spirits' - in DR Congo, as elsewhere in Africa, disease and death are often not looked on as natural phenomena. "So many deaths is a sign of a curse and can only have been provoked by a bad spirit," said Zacharie Bababaswe, a Congolese specialist in cultural history, explaining people's perceptions of Ebola. Before the expansion of evangelical churches in the country, Bababaswe says many Congolese would go see the witch doctor or village healer for treatment. Today there is still widespread superstition -- but, since the 1980s, it has taken a different form, with some people turning for help to a church or a pastor who claims to have healing powers. Two people infected with Ebola from Bikoro went to the churches rather than a medical centre for help, local witnesses said. Another patient, who had been hospitalised in Mbandaka, left the medical centre to seek out a local healer, they said. To brake the spread of Ebola, "we have to convince villagers that the disease is not a curse," said Bavon N'Sa Mputu, an elected official from Bikoro, pointing to the key role that churches can play. Source: .com
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| skibboy | 23 May 2018, 11:09 PM Post #380 |
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Ebola outbreak in DR Congo: Patients 'taken to church' 6 hours ago ![]() Ebola can cause fatal bleeding from internal organs Three Ebola patients left a treatment centre in the Democratic Republic of Congo after their families demanded to take them to church, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Two of the patients later died, while the third returned to the centre in the city of Mbandaka. This presents a new challenge for health workers battling to stop the spread of the contagious disease, says the BBC's Anne Soy in DR Congo. Ebola has no known cure. Health officials fear it could spread rapidly in Mbandaka, a densely populated city of one million. Isolation is the main way to keep the disease under control. The WHO says 58 cases of Ebola have been recorded since the outbreak was declared on 8 May. There have been 27 deaths so far, with three deaths confirmed as Ebola. How did the patients leave? The patients' relatives came to the centre, which is run by medical aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), and demanded to take them for prayers, WHO officer Eugéne Kabambi told the BBC. They were reportedly taken away on motorbikes and a search was ordered by the police. One patient was found dead at home and his body was returned to the hospital for a safe burial. The other was sent back to hospital on 22 May and died that evening, according to MSF. Efforts were made by staff to convince the patients not to leave and continue treatment, MSF says. "However, forced hospitalisation is not the solution to this epidemic. Patient adherence is paramount," it said in a statement. The families of the three patients are now being monitored and some of them have been vaccinated against the disease. Is the situation under control? The disease's spread from rural areas to Mbandaka, located on the Congo River, has sparked fears of it spreading downstream to the capital, Kinshasa, and to neighbouring countries. The WHO says the outbreak has the potential to expand. "We are on the epidemiological knife-edge," Peter Salama, head of emergency responses at the WHO, said at a special meeting to discuss the crisis in Geneva. "The next few weeks will really tell if this outbreak is going to expand to urban areas or if we are going to be able to keep it under control," he added. Health workers began an immunisation campaign to halt the spread of the Ebola virus on 21 May. Limited trials of the experimental vaccine was rolled out during the epidemic in West Africa in 2014-16, which killed more than 11,300 people. This is the ninth outbreak of Ebola in DR Congo. Source: bbc.com
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| skibboy | 25 May 2018, 01:16 AM Post #381 |
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25 May 2018 Catholic priest 'infected with Ebola' in DR Congo ![]() © AFP | Dispensers containing water mixed with disinfectant are being used in Mbandaka during the Ebola outbreak MBANDAKA (DR CONGO) (AFP) - A Catholic priest has been quarantined after being infected with the Ebola virus in the town of Mbandaka in the Democratic Republic of Congo, medical sources said Thursday. "We have quarantined a priest from the diocese of Mbandaka-Bikoro who tested positive" for the Ebola virus, a medical source told AFP on condition of anonymity. Religious authorities could not be immediately contacted. DRC health officials launched a small, targeted vaccination campaign this week to help rein in the latest Ebola outbreak in the country, which so far has claimed 27 lives. Kinshasa announced on May 8 that there had been cases of the notorious haemorrhagic fever in a remote northwestern district called Bikoro. Last Thursday, the first case was reported in a city -- Mbandaka, a transport hub located on the Congo River. According to a World Health Organization count, 58 cases have been identified since early April. It was not possible to establish on Thursday whether the priest was among them. Meanwhile, UNICEF said Thursday it was committed to helping schools and children in the fight against the spread of the virus. The charity's DRC representative Gianfranco Rotigliano told AFP if a student becomes infected, he or she would be promptly taken care of. Following a visit to schools in Bikoro, Rotigliano said: "I spoke with the schoolchildren, and they know the basic rules including washing their hands regularly, and not shaking hands." Ebola spreads through contact with bodily fluids and is both highly infectious and extremely lethal. In Mbandaka, several families have installed buckets of water and soap at the entrance of the house for hand-washing, an AFP correspondent said. "I asked my children to be careful not to shake hands with people and stop playing with their friends in games that would cause contact between them," Claude, a father of several children, told AFP. Source: france24.com
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| skibboy | 3 Jun 2018, 12:24 AM Post #382 |
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02 June 2018 Five new Ebola cases in DR Congo: authorities ![]() © AFP | DR Congo and the World Health Organization are rushing to contain an outbreak of Ebola that has sickened more than 50 people in recent weeks, with 25 dead MBANDAKA (DR CONGO) (AFP) - Health authorities in Democratic Republic of Congo said Saturday they had detected five fresh suspected cases of Ebola in the deadly outbreak afflicting the northwest of the country. Three new cases were recorded in the Bikoro area and two in Wangata, the national health ministry said in a statement. Both lie in the northwestern province of Equateur. DR Congo and the UN World Health Organization are rushing to contain the outbreak that has sickened more than 50 people in recent weeks, with 25 dead. The outbreak was first declared on May 8 in Bikoro, a remote area in the rural northwest of the vast central African country. Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres opened a new treatment centre in Mbandaka, the capital of Equateur province, an AFP reporter saw. At least three people were taken in there on Friday for treatment. Source: france24.com
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| skibboy | 5 Jun 2018, 01:39 AM Post #383 |
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DR Congo: 'If Ebola is properly monitored, you can put out the flames very quickly'![]() © Junior Kannah, AFP | A doctor from Médecins sans Frontières or Doctors Without Borders cleans her hands as she enters an Ebola treatment centre at Wangata hospital in Mbandaka, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, on May 20, 2018 Text by Rémi CARLIER 2018-06-04 The French NGO Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) has been delivering vaccines to some of the remotest villages in DR Congo ever since a new Ebola outbreak was declared there last month. FRANCE 24 spoke to MSF emergency programme manager Hugues Robert. FRANCE 24: The new vaccine rVSV-ZEBOV was used successfully on a few thousands people in Guinea during the last Ebola outbreak in West Africa, but it is still in its experimental stage. Are there any ethical problems linked to the use of this vaccine this time? Hugues Robert: The vaccine is only offered to people who are very likely to catch the disease. Patients can choose whether or not to accept it, and this is done through a written agreement. Typically, a family that has had a case of Ebola and who has cared for that person, who has fed and cleaned him or her and washed his sheets and clothes, has a higher risk of getting sick. People who are given the vaccine are very well informed beforehand on the possible side effects. We are aware of some of them, especially arthritis and skin lesions (papules), which aren’t difficult to treat but are uncomfortable for the patient. However, the fact that we are still at the experimental stage means that there is a whole procedure in place for patients and for monitoring them afterwards. This procedure forces us, when we are working in very remote places, to return to see our patients every 28 days and, if a woman is pregnant, until the end of her pregnancy. All of that takes much more time than it does when a vaccine has been approved, and it limits the number of people we can innoculate. It’s much more complicated to vaccinate more than 40 to 50 people a day if we want to make sure that all the right procedures are followed. We’re not far off from rVSV-ZEBOV being approved, but we can’t yet carry out a mass vaccination as it has been done for measles when several hundred people can be reached daily. Why did you choose the ring vaccination method rather than a mass vaccination campaign? A global mass campaign isn’t possible, firstly because of the number of vaccines available but also because of the way we can administer it. Because rVSV-ZEBOV hasn’t yet been approved, we can’t go as fast as we would do with a mass vaccination. This ‘ring’ method means we can target the areas and people who are most at risk. Eventually, if the situation is properly monitored, you can put out the flames very quickly. From that point of view, there is no point in flooding the population with vaccines. How do people react when the medical teams arrive, especially in the remote areas of Iboko and Bikoro? This vaccination campaign has been surprisingly well received and more people have shown interest than we can cater for. We can only vaccinate people who have been exposed to the disease, the people who are close to them and those who are involved in the campaign. We’ve broadened the vaccination to include traditional doctors and people from religious communities, who take care of patients and other professions at risk, like taxi motorbikes, which transport these patients. We work in a practical way by understanding how the community works and who is most at risk. However, there is a difference between vaccination and managing contaminated patients. We are operating in the countryside, where, as in any epidemic, people are fearful and reticent to bring in close family members or friends. This attitude is obvious in Mbandaka (the capital of Équateur Province) and in remoter areas, and it’s all part of the fear this disease inspires. That’s why we are working closely with the community to explain what we are doing and why. It is a pity that the awareness campaign hasn’t yet reached some of the remotest areas where the disease’s epicentre is, although the first MSF teams reached the Iboki region as early as May 9 to treat infections. There is still some resistance, but we’re in this for the long haul and this work will take some time. I’ve met some community chiefs – people who represent this very traditional society – and they are very open to discussions, which you need to allow things to evolve. I was much more concerned two weeks ago, but the more involved we get, the more progress there is. The World Health Organiwation would like to try using five healing drugs on patients who have been infected with the Ebola virus, three of which have not been tested on humans. The DR Congo health ministry should soon give it the go-ahead. Do you approve ? MSF is associated with one of those experimental molecules. In a case like Ebola, these drugs can, as an exception, be given the green light. In such cases, the patient (or the family if the patient is a child) is given the choice of using or not the medicine. We know that patient only has a very small chance of survival, so we offer a him or her a choice of trying out the molecule knowing that it’s more of an opportunity than anything else given the poor prospects that patient has. Often, the doctor decides everything, but in this case, the patient is given a choice. Source: france24.com
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| skibboy | 11 Jun 2018, 12:34 AM Post #384 |
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10 June 2018 WHO predicts Ebola outbreak in DR Congo could end soon ![]() © AFP | Health workers operate within an Ebola safety zone in the Health Center in Iyonda in DR Congo. The World Health Organization says it is "cautiously optimistic" that the outbreak could end soon KINSHASA (AFP) - The director general of the World Health said Sunday he believed a swift end could be put to the outbreak of Ebola in northwestern DR Congo, some 21 days which has left 27 people dead over the past month. "I am cautiously optimistic that we shall be able to bring it to an end soon," Doctor Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at Kinshasa airport. Earlier, he had tweeted that "it?s far too early to declare victory in the #Ebola outbreak. But the signals are positive and we are cautiously optimistic." His comments come after the WHO and NGOs since May 21 began helping the Democratic Republic of Congo immunise front-line workers with a vaccine that has shown to be highly effective in trials, though it still awaits regulatory approval. A total of 1,369 people have received the experimental vaccine since May 21, the ministry said last Wednesday. Tedros is on an "evaluation" visit to the country as the WHO monitors the progress of surveillance teams of epidemiologists working to assess the situation after local authorities declared the outbreak in a remote part of the province of Equateur on May 8. On Thursday the WHO gave a total of 59 confirmed, probable and suspected Ebola cases, of which 27 people had died with one new case confirmed on June 6. But Tedros said the situation was improving with the last case in the town of Mbandaka diagnosed on May 20 and in the town of Bikoro, which saw the first case confirmed on May 17, with another confirmed on June 2 at nearby Iboko. Tedros noted the cases were in "places which are not very accessible" and that the epidemiologists were going from village to village as they battled the logistical difficulties of covering ground as swiftly they could. Bikoro is some 100 kilometres (62.5 miles) from regional centre Mbandaka and 600 km from Kinshasa), near the border with Congo-Brazzaville. The outbreak is DR Congo's ninth since the first in 1976. Source: france24.com
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