‘Perfect storm’ for Ebola: Combination of violence and political unrest will cause the deadly outbreak to spread within WEEKS, health chief warns
- Armed opposition attacks in affected provinces have risen in recent weeks
- Refugee workers have been forced to evacuate due to deadly raids
- This comes as the death toll from Ebola in the DRC has reached 97 people
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The Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Ebola outbreak is set to spread even further within the next few weeks, an official warns.
Dr Peter Salama, emergency response chief at the World Health Organization (WHO), fears the combination of rebel violence and pre-election unrest is creating a ‘perfect storm’ for an even worse epidemic.
Armed opposition attacks in North Kivu province, which has been hit by the outbreak, have risen in recent weeks.
Refugee workers have even been forced to evacuate the town of Beni, where the outbreak started, due to a deadly raid that left more than a dozen locals dead.
Fears and misconceptions about the virus are also being exploited by politicians ahead of the DRC’s December election, which is causing the public to lose faith in health workers, according to Dr Salama.
At least 142 people have been infected with Ebola in the outbreak around the North Kivu region in the north-east of Democratic Republic of the Congo since it was declared on August 1 – the city of Beni has been the centre of the current outbreak
‘We are now extremely concerned that several factors may be coming together over the next weeks to months to create a perfect storm,’ Dr Salama said.
‘The response at this stage is at a critical juncture.’
He has also warned the areas affected by the outbreak are expanding, notably to border areas, with Uganda facing ‘an imminent threat.’
The outbreak, the 10th in the DRC’s history, is thought to have killed 97 people since it was declared on August 1 in the eastern part of North Kivu. However, only 66 of these deaths are confirmed to be down to Ebola, according to the WHO.
This comes after the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) suspended all its activities in Beni and its surrounding areas following an armed group attack last Saturday.
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Stephen Lamin, area manager for the NRC, said: ‘It’s a worst-case scenario for any aid group to have to suspend relief work that helps communities in need.
‘But this weekend’s attack on Beni town has left us in an impossible position.’
The NRC has already been forced to suspend or cancel relief efforts in the DRC several times this year due to insecurity.
Ms Lamin added: ‘The recent attack has made the situation even worse as families have had to flee from their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs.’
Earlier this month Ebola was found to be responsible for the death of a woman in Butembo, which has a population of around 1.4 million.
In response, Dr Salama said ‘no-one should be sleeping well tonight around the world’.
An Ebola patient is pictured being led to treatment by medical workers in Beni: Since the outbreak began, 5,088 people are thought to have come into contact with people who have the virus and at least 19 medical workers have been infected, three of which have died
Local reports claim the unnamed woman was the mother of a known Ebola patient, who travelled from the town at the centre of the outbreak.
Experimental drugs have been shipped into the area to control the virus, which is considered to be one of the most lethal pathogens in existence.
But virologists have repeatedly warned the situation is ‘hard to control’ due to cases occurring in a conflict zone roamed by armed militias.
The WHO has admitted the latest death makes ending the outbreak in the east of the country significantly harder.
Butembo’s mayor revealed the victim was a woman, who was likely infected as a result of her participating in an unsafe burial. She died in a university clinic.
But the DRC’s Ministry of Health claims it was a man from a nearby town at the centre of the outbreak, who refused to cooperate with health authorities.
‘Ebola case from Beni has died in Butembo DRC,’ Dr Salama wrote on Twitter.
‘Good news is case detected quickly, response already in place and expanding. Bad new(s) is increases risk of further spread.’
He told the HuffPost: ‘When you have an Ebola case confirmed in a city with one million people, no one should be sleeping well tonight around the world.’
Dr Salama added having Ebola in urban centres, such as Butembo, makes ending the ongoing outbreak much harder.
Most of the Ebola cases recorded so far have been in Beni, a city of 230,000 people with close links to bordering Uganda.
Butembo, about 35 miles (55km) away, is around triple the size of Beni and is a major trading route for consumer goods entering the DRC.
Some 97 people have died in the most recent Ebola outbreak, which is occurring in the North Kivu province in the north-east of Democratic Republic of the Congo. Pictured: Health workers carry the body of a suspected victim on August 22, in Mangina, a town near Beni
The virus has since spread to Oicha, an area almost entirely surrounded by militants, which stoked the fears of Dr Tedros Adhanom, chief of the WHO.
He previously told Reuters: ‘If one case is hidden in the red zone or an inaccessible area, it’s dangerous. It can just spark a fire, just one case.’
The International Rescue Committee, which responds to humanitarian crises, fears the outbreak will trump the pandemic four years ago, which killed 11,000 and decimated West Africa.
A spokesperson from the agency said: ‘Without a swift, concerted and efficient response, this outbreak has the potential to be the worst ever seen.’
Ebola virus disease, caused by the virus with its namesake, kills around 50 per cent of the people it strikes, with no proven treatment being available.
The unsafe burial of a 65-year-old Ebola sufferer triggered the latest outbreak in the DRC, according to the WHO.
After she was buried members of her family began to display symptoms of the virus ‘and seven of them died’.
Genetic analysis confirmed the virus is the Zaire strain; the same as the one that was behind an outbreak in the west of the DRC earlier this summer.
However, Dr Salama has argued the newer pathogen is genetically different to previous strains.
The 2014 international response to the Ebola pandemic, which decimated West Africa, drew criticism for moving too slowly and prompted an apology from the WHO.
But international aid teams have moved much quicker in response this time, with vaccination campaigns already underway in several regions.
WHAT IS EBOLA AND HOW DEADLY IS IT?
Ebola, a haemorrhagic fever, killed at least 11,000 across the world after it decimated West Africa and spread rapidly over the space of two years.
That pandemic was officially declared over back in January 2016, when Liberia was announced to be Ebola-free by the WHO.
The country, rocked by back-to-back civil wars that ended in 2003, was hit the hardest by the fever, with 40 per cent of the deaths having occurred there.
Sierra Leone reported the highest number of Ebola cases, with nearly of all those infected having been residents of the nation.
WHERE DID IT BEGIN?
An analysis, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found the outbreak began in Guinea – which neighbours Liberia and Sierra Leone.
A team of international researchers were able to trace the pandemic back to a two-year-old boy in Meliandou – about 400 miles (650km) from the capital, Conakry.
Emile Ouamouno, known more commonly as Patient Zero, may have contracted the deadly virus by playing with bats in a hollow tree, a study suggested.
HOW MANY PEOPLE WERE STRUCK DOWN?
Figures show nearly 29,000 people were infected from Ebola – meaning the virus killed around 40 per cent of those it struck.
Cases and deaths were also reported in Nigeria, Mali and the US – but on a much smaller scale, with 15 fatalities between the three nations.
Health officials in Guinea reported a mysterious bug in the south-eastern regions of the country before the WHO confirmed it was Ebola.
Ebola was first identified by scientists in 1976, but the most recent outbreak dwarfed all other ones recorded in history, figures show.
HOW DID HUMANS CONTRACT THE VIRUS?
Scientists believe Ebola is most often passed to humans by fruit bats, but antelope, porcupines, gorillas and chimpanzees could also be to blame.
It can be transmitted between humans through blood, secretions and other bodily fluids of people – and surfaces – that have been infected.
IS THERE A TREATMENT?
The WHO warns that there is ‘no proven treatment’ for Ebola – but dozens of drugs and jabs are being tested in case of a similarly devastating outbreak.
Hope exists though, after an experimental vaccine, called rVSV-ZEBOV, protected nearly 6,000 people. The results were published in The Lancet journal.
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