ABOVE: The tenth Ebola outbreak has ravaged Eastern Congo for two years. Photo: Espen Rasmussen
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The message came the day after the two-year Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo was declared over. – The response has failed in several ways, says Doctors Without Borders.
The Ebola outbreak was declared a global health crisis in July last year.
By then, the tenth Ebola outbreak in Eastern Congo had already lasted for a year. The outbreak was, according to WHO, a long, complex and difficult one. An additional challenge has been that the outbreak occurred in an active war zone.
With the first outbreak in North Kivu on August 1, 2018, it has become the second largest Ebola outbreak in history.
Since then, there have been around 3470 cases of infection, with 2287 deaths and 1171 survivors.
– WHO will pay tribute to the thousands of heroic people who have fought one of the world’s most dangerous viruses, in one of the world’s most unstable areas, writes WHO in a statement.
– The world has a lot to learn from eastern Congo
WHO defines one global health crisis as “an extraordinary event” that poses a “health risk to other states through the global spread of the disease”.
The Ebola virus is a serious and often fatal disease that affects humans and mammals. It is estimated that the virus has a mortality rate of around 50 percent. The rate has nevertheless been very varied in different outbreaks – from 25 to 90 per cent.
The biggest outbreak – in West Africa between 2014 and 2016 – cost 11,300 people their lives.
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– Countries around the world, now facing the covid 19 pandemic, can learn a lot from East Congo’s handling of the Ebola outbreak, WHO writes in a statement.
– Several of the measures that have been effective in stopping Ebola are the same as now needed to stop covid-19: detection, isolation, testing, treatment of each case and persistent infection detection.
They also write that the DR Congo Health Ministry, supported by, among others, WHO, has trained thousands of health workers, tested 220,000 and vaccinated 303,000 people over a 22-month period.
– Thanks to the management in the affected areas, the virus has not spread globally, WHO continues.
Does the ebolar response feel wrong
However, it was estimated that the virus could be declared earlier this year. But then the outbreak started again in April. In parallel, there has been an increase in the number of violent attacks in parts of the country.
Doctors Without Borders enter a statement that it has taken too long to stop the outbreak.
– The fact that it is only declared in June, two months after the expected end date, testifies that the response has failed in several ways, they write.
They believe that the actors – including themselves – have had an “Ebola-centric” approach in their work.
—ERROR: Doctors Without Borders has been one of the key players in the fight against the tenth Ebola outbreak. They believe they must now learn from the mistakes that were made along the way. Photo: JOHN WESSELS / AFP
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– We know that the Ebola-centric approach, together with aggressive approaches that weakened people’s confidence in the response, was crucial to the failure of the Ebola response, quotes Program Manager for Emergency Response in Doctors Without Borders, Karline Kleijer, in the statement.
– There was too much focus on stopping the virus, rather than providing care and support to those affected. And without the trust of the community, we have failed the people of DR Congo.
Both WHO and Doctors Without Borders emphasize that even though the tenth outbreak is now over, the fight against the Ebola virus continues. New outbreaks can quickly occur, and the health system is weakened in the face of other threats such as covid-19, measles epidemic and cholera.
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