World Health Organisation confirms new case of Ebola in Democratic Republic of Congo
The World Health Organisation(WHO) has confirmed a new case of Ebola virus disease in the city of Beni in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Penpushing reports that, Director-General of the world body, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made this known on Saturday in a statement emailed to Penpushing media from its Geneva headquarters, adding that ‘this is an event we anticipated’
“While not welcome news, this is an event we anticipated. We kept response teams in Beni and other high risk areas for precisely this reason,” Ghebreyesus said, adding that Ebola surveillance system has been put in place to respond to this ongoing outbreak
‘As part of the active Ebola surveillance system in place to respond to this ongoing outbreak in DRC, thousands of alerts are still being investigated every day. An alert is a person who has symptoms that could be due to Ebola, or any death in a high risk area that could have been as result of Ebola.
The Director General said, with all confirmed cases, efforts are already underway to find everyone who may have been in contact with the person in order to offer them the vaccine and monitor their health status.
Penpushing further reports that, the organization Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti said, “WHO has worked side by side with health responders from the DRC for over 18 months and our teams are right now supporting the investigation into this latest case,”
“Although the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic adds challenges, we will continue this joint effort until we can declare the end of this Ebola outbreak together.” Moeti emphasised
The news of the confirmed case came minutes after the conclusion of a meeting of the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee on Ebola in DRC. The Emergency Committee will reconvene next week in order to re-evaluate their recommendations in light of this new information.
Penpushing also reports that, the statement said,prior to this, the last person who was confirmed to have Ebola in DRC tested negative twice and was discharged from a treatment centre on 3 March 2020,while as at 10 April 2020, 3456 confirmed and probable cases and 2276 deaths have occurred as a result of the outbreak.
