DRC Shakes Off Ebola Outbreak As no new cases are being reported from the 15th outbreak in the Central African nation
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DRC declared the end of an Ebola outbreak on Tuesday, that re-emerged 6 weeks ago in the country’s North Kivu Province. This comes as Uganda races to curb an unrelated outbreak declared last week. Courtsey of Twitter/@WHOAFRO
The Ebola virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has ended, officials declared on Tuesday. An outbreak was declared by Africa CDC on 17 after one case was confirmed in the eastern city of Beni, in the North Kivu province, becoming the fifteenth outbreak the nation has experienced in the Central African state since 1976.
DRC’s Minister of Public Health, Mbungani Mbanda, declared that the 15th outbreak, which lasted one month and 12 days, had ended after 42 days of increased surveillance without a new confirmed case. According to reports, the virus caused 18 cases, and 5 fatalities.
The World Health Organization (WHO) noted in a separate statement that the virus’s outbreak was its “least catastrophic” because no more cases are being reported. However, as the neighboring Uganda races to curb an Ebola outbreak of its own, the WHO noted that the end of DRC’s EVD coincides with the Ugandan SUVD outbreak.
The outbreak that killed approximately 2,300 people in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri in 2018–2020 was genetically connected to this case, according to testing.
It is noted that the DRC’s EVD strain has a vaccine while no treatment has yet been found for the SUVD strain currently in Uganda .
The viral hemorrhagic illness Ebola is frequently lethal. Fever, vomiting, bleeding, and diarrhea are the main symptoms of this human-to-human transmission disease. The WHO reports that the death rate is often high, reaching up to 90% in some epidemics.
The virus, which was first discovered in 1976 and has the bat as its primary host, has subsequently caused a number of epidemics that have killed roughly 15,000 people across several African nations.
The northwest Equateur Province was the site of the DRC’s previous outbreak and on July 4, with five fatalities, it was deemed over with a fresh outbreak on its heels emerging six weeks later in August.
