Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Thursday July 18 2019, @02:32PM   Printer-friendly

Ebola Outbreak Declared Global Health Emergency

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Ebola outbreak declared global health emergency

The World Health Organization has declared the Ebola crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo a "public health emergency of international concern". The move may encourage wealthy donor countries to provide more cash.

But the WHO stopped short of saying borders should be closed, saying the risk of the disease spreading outside the region was not high.

The outbreak in DR Congo has killed more than 1,600 people. This week, the first case was detected in Goma, home to more than a million. The PHEIC emergency provision is the highest level of alarm the WHO can sound and has only been used four times previously. This includes the Ebola epidemic that devastated parts of West Africa from 2014 to 2016, and killed more than 11,000 people.

"It is time for the world to take notice," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference in Geneva on Wednesday at which the emergency was declared. He said he accepted recommendations there should be no restrictions on travel or trade, and no entry screening of passengers at ports or airports outside the immediate region.

"While it does not change the reality on the ground for victims or partners engaged in the response, we hope it will bring the international attention that this crisis deserves," it said in a statement.

WHO Declares Ebola Outbreak an International Emergency

From WHO declares Ebola outbreak an international emergency

The World Health Organization on Wednesday declared the nearly year-long Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

The outbreak was declared on August 1, 2018 and has tallied 2,512 cases and 1,676 deaths. So far, it's centered in the DRC's North Kivu and Ituri provinces, which are on the eastern side of the country bordering South Sudan, Uganda, and Rwanda.

The declaration Wednesday follows the spread of Ebola to Goma, a DRC city of nearly 2 million people at the border with Rwanda that acts as hub of regional transportation. On Sunday, health workers there confirmed the city's first case in a 47-year-old pastor who had just arrived from Butembo, a DRC city that has struggled with the outbreak since last December.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies welcomed the move.

Previously: Measles is Killing More People in the DRC than Ebola-and Faster


Original Submission #1Original Submission #2

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday July 18 2019, @09:05PM (1 child)

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Thursday July 18 2019, @09:05PM (#868687) Journal

    This is how I remember it... I tried looking for the reference but couldn't find it, so if I'm wrong then I'm wrong. I thought it was during the 2014 Sierra Leone outbreak but I could really be wrong about that. The story as I remember it was that the woman was sick, and she knew it, but was afraid to go to the treatment center in her town where the outbreak was occurring. So she made a night border crossing across the "river" into another village where she had relatives, but it was over the border. African countries' borders are fairly porous. The authorities caught up to her and treated her, and she survived. ("Treatment" then meaning supportive care and hopefully the immune system fights it off.)

    We have this image that Ebola is a thing where you are bleeding out of every orifice with arterial level gushing. Bleeding can in fact happen, but only 18% [nih.gov] present with it as a symptom before disease detection. The patient is much more likely to be hypovolemic and therefore without a lot of resources to bleed.

    The notion is that if you close the border the people who are desperate will still find ways to cross a few miles to either side of it. Keep the border open but screen people and you might be able to get the people who need treatment into treatment. The advantage is that the disease isn't infectious until symptoms appear but the symptoms can be mistaken for typhoid or other diseases. The disadvantage is that the symptoms can be mild.

    Here's the question... if you had fever and bouts of vomiting and diarrhea, maybe a little bit of bloody in the stool but your body has played out for the moment, do you think you could walk 5 miles if you thought that meant safety to you? I could do it if I had to and I'm not an athelete.

    One of the other things that those who work with the disease are learning is that they can't just don their protective gear and walk into a village. They have to go in with civvies and then put on the gear to decontaminate if they find a suspected case.

    --
    This sig for rent.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Friday July 19 2019, @01:19PM

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Friday July 19 2019, @01:19PM (#868942)

    Not to mention people who are infected, travel, and then exhibit symptoms and become infectious.

    "There is ebola in my village, I'm getting out of here"