Ebola rages on in the DRC: 37 more cases within three days
The Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at University of Minnesota reported on Monday an unfortunate record number of Ebola cases -- 37 -- has occurred within the last 72 hours in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), adding to the 16 cases reported the day before. That puts the total number of cases to 1,154, including 731 deaths, for a case-fatality rate of 63.3 percent, says the CIDRAP news release. Since April 6, CIDRAP says 29 deaths have been recorded, including 13 community deaths, which means the infections occurred outside of the region's Ebola treatment centers. Ebola is spreading to family members and others during funerals and the DRC said that, in North Kivu and Ituri, 53 percent of patients have been infected by family members.
In response to a growing wave of complaints that not enough is being done to stop the outbreaks, including long waits for Ebola lab results, the DRC health ministry published details about the laboratory units used by Ebola response teams in the region. The laboratories used in the outbreak are managed by the National Institute for Biomedical Research (INRB.) Attendees at community meetings, reports CIDRAP, also charge that the DRC and World Health Organization (WHO) are not investing enough to curb the outbreak in zones outside of Ebola response efforts.
DRC's Minister of Health, Oly Ilunga Kalenga, MD, said last week that he had discussions with the federal government to establish a medium- and long-term development plan to "restore the region socially and economically." The first phase of the plan began this week, with the recruitment of 1,000 people for road maintenance jobs in Butembo and Katwa. And on Twitter, the WHO said beginning on April 15, 8,000 health workers in Rwanda will be vaccinated with Merck's rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine. Rwanda, like Uganda and South Sudan, will vaccinate at-risk populations near the DRC border in an effort to protect against the virus. So far 96,664 people have received the vaccine in the DRC, including 24,136 in Katwa and 21,582 in Beni.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledged last month that any of the challenges that lie ahead could undo the gains achieved so far in controlling the spread of the Ebola virus and said enough progress has been made to believe the Ebola outbreak in Congo’s North Kivu and Ituri provinces can be shut down in six months’ time.
