Situation Report: Ebola crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo - Democratic Republic of the Congo - ReliefWeb

-

SITUATION OVERVIEW

On August 1, 2018, the Ministry of Health of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) declared that an outbreak of the Ebola virus had occurred in the North Kivu (Kivu Nord) and Ituri provinces. As of May 29, 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 1,851 confirmed cases of Ebola, with 1,208 confirmed deaths.

This is the world’s second largest Ebola outbreak in recorded history and the largest ever in the DRC. The outbreak is occurring in a region rife with insecurity. Multiple armed groups engaged in regional ethnic struggles have caused large-scale displacement, with more than 1 million internally displaced people in North Kivu province alone. Several attacks have been launched against health facilities and workers, resulting in the looting and burning of clinics, and kidnapping and murder of staff. The violence targeting health workers and facilities forced the suspension of Ebola response activities for a week in April.

Adding to the peril, the Ebola-affected provinces share borders with Rwanda and Uganda, with frequent cross-border movement for personal travel and trade, increasing the chance that the virus could spread beyond the DRC.

OUR RESPONSE

IMA World Health is working in the epicenter of the Ebola zone, coordinating with local communities and organizations to stop the spread of the virus in five of the most-affected health zones in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces, where nearly 1.2 million people live. The work, carried out in cooperation with the DRC’s Ministry of Health and the WHO Strategic Response Plan, is being funded by the Office of U.S.
Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). IMA’s role centers around supporting health facilities and community engagement activities in and around Beni and Butembo towns. Highlights of IMA’s Ebola response include:

• Implementing community outreach and mobilization, which includes training and sensitizing community outreach workers and the general public on signs and symptoms of Ebola, disease awareness, prevention and reduction of stigma. We are also working with religious leaders to engage their respective congregations in the fight against Ebola and increase community cooperation with Ebola response teams.

• Conducting contact tracing in coordination with the WHOsupported contact team to track the spread of the virus and quickly identify and isolate new cases.

• Refurbishing first line health care facilities so they can isolate patients who present to the health facility with symptoms of Ebola and prevent the spread of infection to other patients or health care workers within these facilities.

• Improving infection prevention and control practices at 50 at-risk health facilities by providing them with water, sanitation, hygiene and waste management facilities and equipment to prevent transmission of the virus within the facility from patient to patient or patient to health care provider. We are also supplying health facilities with personal protection supplies such as soap, gloves, gowns, masks and goggles to protect workers who come in contact with the virus.



http://bit.ly/2QCrNGK

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Azar calls for transparency in Ebola-like death in Tanzania | TheHill - The Hill

-
Image
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Monday called for transparency from Tanzanian officials in the case of a patient who recently died after suffering Ebola-like symptoms, The Associated Press  reported . Azar told reporters in Uganda that he and others are “very concerned” and urged Tanzania’s government to share lab results related to the case. ADVERTISEMENT Congo, which borders Tanzania, is in the midst of the second-deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, with confirmed cases now exceeding 3,000. Azar said efforts were underway to secure Tanzania’s compliance with international health regulations and obligations to the World Health Organization (WHO) “to protect Tanzanians as well as all people in the region," according to the AP. Tanzania’s government said Saturday there is no confirmed case of Ebola inside its borders. According to an internal WHO document obtained by AP, the patient, a 34-year-old woman, died on Sept. 8 and was bu...
Read more

A Russian lab containing smallpox and Ebola exploded - Vox.com

-
Image
Russia’s State Research Center of Virology, in the city of Koltsovo in Siberia, has one of the largest collections of dangerous viruses anywhere in the world. During the Cold War, the lab developed biological weapons and defenses against them, and it reportedly stored dangerous strains of smallpox, anthrax, and Ebola among other viruses. So lots of people were concerned when an explosion ripped through the facility on Monday. According to Russian independent media , the laboratory was undergoing repairs when a gas bottle exploded, sparking a 30-square-meter fire that left one worker severely burned. Glass throughout the building was reportedly destroyed in the blast, and the fire reportedly spread through the building’s ventilation system . The lab is one of only two in the world known to still have samples of smallpox, which was eradicated from the wild in 1977. The other is in the United States . Experts say that under certain circumstances, an explosion could lead to the releas...
Read more

Distinguishing viruses responsible for influenza-like illness

-
Image
bird flu 2021 :: Article Creator Bird Flu Pandemic Preparedness Activities Are Not Evidence Of A Conspiracy Este artículo estará disponible en español en El Tiempo Latino. Flu viruses have a long history of making animals and humans sick. This includes a track record of causing pandemics, which can occur when unfamiliar viruses begin to spread widely among humans. Recently, a type of bird flu — called H5N1 — has been spreading among poultry, dairy cows and wild animals in the U.S. And infecting some farmworkers, adding to existing concerns about the virus's pandemic potential. The U.S. Government, in collaboration with others around the world, has a history of flu pandemic preparedness activities, including monitoring the flu viruses circulating in people and certain animals and stockpiling relevant vaccines and antivirals. These activities are meant to ensure scientists spot any concerning changes to flu viruses' genetics or circulati...
Read more