Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Ebola outbreak in Congo spreads to new city
The Hill ^ | 09/06/18 | Reid Wilson

Posted on 09/06/2018 11:26:56 AM PDT by yesthatjallen

An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in two eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has spread to a major international trading hub with almost a million residents, Congolese health officials said Wednesday.

Health officials in Butembo, a city with close links to neighboring Uganda, said they had confirmed that a man who died at Butembo University Hospital had tested positive for the virus.

The Congolese health ministry said the man had contact with an Ebola patient in Beni, a city about 25 miles north of Butembo where almost two dozen Ebola victims have been identified, before fleeing south.

The health ministry said it had prepared the hospital staff to deal with potential Ebola cases. Ndjoloko Tambwe Bathe, who is heading the response for the DRC’s health ministry, traveled to the city on Wednesday to set up a full response team. The ministry is setting up an Ebola treatment unit, the fifth established in the region since the outbreak began.

The most recent outbreak of the Ebola virus began in July in North Kivu Province, home to about eight million residents and about a million internally displaced refugees. So far, health officials have identified 127 probable and confirmed cases. Eighty-seven people have died.

Most of those cases have been in the Mabalako health district, where the first cases were reported in late July after a funeral for a woman in the town of Mangina. Several relatives who attended the funeral, who probably washed and dressed the woman’s body to prepare her for the afterlife, later came down with symptoms.

Several probable and confirmed cases have been identified in neighboring Ituri Province, north of North Kivu.

Public health officials had already been worried about the spread of the virus once it reached Beni, a city of about a quarter million residents that also has close trade ties to Uganda. Now that it has reached Butembo, those officials said, their fears have grown.

“Good news is case detected quickly, response already in place & expanding,” Peter Salama, the World Health Organization’s deputy director-general for Emergency Preparedness and Response, wrote on Twitter. “Bad new[s] is increases risk of further spread, and having Ebola in an urban centre makes ending the outbreak much harder.”

In the weeks after the outbreak began, global public health officials and non-governmental organizations have raced hundreds of epidemiologists and technicians and millions of dollars in relief aid to the region. Those officials had identified at least 4,300 people who had come into contact with someone infected with the Ebola virus, and more than half of those people remain under watch in case they develop symptoms.

Public health officials also worried that the security situation in North Kivu Province would hinder their ability to track down those who had come into contact with Ebola patients. Ethnic violence, and attacks from Islamist guerrillas based in Uganda, made some of that critical contact-tracing far more difficult.

In an interview last week from Beni, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said contact tracers were largely confident that they had identified virtually all of those who could potentially become infected.

“The feeling is that we have, in Mangina, the resources. It seems the cases that are coming are coming from the contacts, which is a good sign,” Jasarevic said. He said the WHO teams had been able to access all the villages where Ebola cases might be present.

The Congolese Health Ministry said a vaccination campaign that has been underway for weeks had already reached 6,343 people, including more than 3,000 in Mabalako, almost 2,000 in Beni and more than a thousand in Mandima. Front-line health care workers and those who might come into contact with an Ebola victim get the highest priority for the new vaccine.

This is the second Ebola outbreak this year in which the new vaccine has been deployed. The vaccine, developed during the waning days of an Ebola outbreak in the West African nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, was earlier deployed to Equateur Province, a region about 750 miles west of North Kivu.

None of those who received the vaccine in Equateur subsequently fell ill.

Since the Ebola virus was first discovered in 1976, there have been 14 confirmed outbreaks, mostly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo — or, as it was then known, Zaire. The outbreak in West Africa killed more than 11,300 people, by far the deadliest of any epidemic. The latest outbreak is already the ninth-deadliest of its kind.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: africa; bringoutyourdead; congo; ebola; outbreak
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-28 next last

1 posted on 09/06/2018 11:26:56 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: yesthatjallen

*Yawn* Ebola in the Congo. When there isn’t some filthy disease raging in that part of the world that will be news. Honest to God. After decades of foreign aid and countless ‘’mission’’ to teach these aborigines not to piss in the drinking water why does this still happen?


2 posted on 09/06/2018 11:30:20 AM PDT by jmacusa (Made it Ma, top of the world!'')
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: yesthatjallen
A few years ago,during the last ebola outbreak,we visited several East African nations.Upon arrival at each one there were medical personnel taking the temperatures of each arrival.

It was a bit spooky.

3 posted on 09/06/2018 11:30:38 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (I've Never Owned Slaves...You've Never Picked Cotton.End Of "Discussion".)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: yesthatjallen

We haven’t had one of these in a while. And the virologists of the world rejoice.

Aids
Ebola
Marburg
West Nile
VEE
Smallpox
Lassa Fever
Tularemia

And who says Africa hasn’t contributed to the world?


4 posted on 09/06/2018 11:30:50 AM PDT by TangledUpInBlue
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: yesthatjallen
Ebola outbreak in Congo spreads to new city

What are the early symptoms of ebola? Is it like the flu?

5 posted on 09/06/2018 11:31:19 AM PDT by The Sons of Liberty ('DEPLORABLE' Charter Member of The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy - and DAMN Proud of it!.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: yesthatjallen
Something has to be done to stop the spread of these racist viruses.
 
6 posted on 09/06/2018 11:37:56 AM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie ("Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Gay State Conservative

“A few years ago,during the last ebola outbreak,we visited several East African nations”

Death wish?


7 posted on 09/06/2018 11:38:52 AM PDT by TangledUpInBlue
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: TangledUpInBlue

There’s been one West Nile death recorded in Iowa in 2018 so I assume there have been other cases where people have become sickened but didn’t die. There are usually some in Illinois every year.


8 posted on 09/06/2018 11:39:52 AM PDT by Aliska
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: The Sons of Liberty

The initial symptomology is very much like the flu except that in deadly cases the fever doesn’t relent. When signs of hemorrhaging begin to occur, it is typically too late to reverse. Ebola Zaire is the most deadly of the strains. It’s nasty shit.


9 posted on 09/06/2018 11:40:28 AM PDT by TangledUpInBlue
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Aliska

Yes, in an otherwise healthy adult, West Nile poses very little threat. The very young, elderly and those pre-disposed to respiratory issues are in a bit more danger but WNV is not a Level 4 Bio-Hazard.


10 posted on 09/06/2018 11:42:01 AM PDT by TangledUpInBlue
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: yesthatjallen

Thanks, Africa.


11 posted on 09/06/2018 11:47:23 AM PDT by wastedyears (The left would kill every single one of us and our families if they knew they could get away with it)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TangledUpInBlue
#4:
Aids
Ebola
Marburg
West Nile
VEE
Smallpox
Lassa Fever
Tularemia

"And who says Africa hasn’t contributed to the world?"

Allow me to add two more African contributions to human misery:

Trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness)               
Dengue Fever

 
12 posted on 09/06/2018 11:47:40 AM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie ("Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: The Sons of Liberty
Yes.

Early noticeable symptoms include sudden onset of: Fever Fatigue Joint and muscle pain Headache

Then the hemorrhaging starts.

13 posted on 09/06/2018 11:48:12 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: TangledUpInBlue
And who says Africa hasn’t contributed to the world?

Hahahahahahahaha

14 posted on 09/06/2018 11:48:38 AM PDT by wastedyears (The left would kill every single one of us and our families if they knew they could get away with it)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: yesthatjallen
They've had plenty of time to figure out what to do about Ebola - this is NOT our problem. That said, we wish them well.

BIG>(How many millions of dollars did Democratic Republic of the Congo pay to 'our' people to hear 'speeches'?

Didn't Bill the Whoremonger try to give a speech there?

And even the corrupt State Department told him 'no'?

Well whatever bribes they paid they're NOT going to work on President Trump. Next time the 'Congo' should spend their money on their people NOT on paying thinly disguised bribes to our 'retired' Deep State thugs)

15 posted on 09/06/2018 11:49:03 AM PDT by GOPJ (Anonymous & the Shoeless Joe Jackson cabal need to resign. President Trump deserves honest employees)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: yesthatjallen
p49

Treat the Ebola patient from Africa they said, you'll be fine they said.

16 posted on 09/06/2018 11:58:23 AM PDT by Snickering Hound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Governor Dinwiddie

Since the general topic of Africa has come up, here’s one of my favorite essays.

http://www.kimdutoit.com/2017/05/05/let-africa-sink/


17 posted on 09/06/2018 12:10:14 PM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: yesthatjallen
"In the weeks after the outbreak began, global public health officials and non-governmental organizations have raced hundreds of epidemiologists and technicians and millions of dollars in relief aid to the region."

yeah, right...millions more down a rat hole....

what they really need is not "technicians" or "epidemiologists" but nursing aides to clean up the patients and food workers/laundry workers etc to feed and cloth them.

18 posted on 09/06/2018 12:10:50 PM PDT by cherry (official troll)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: yesthatjallen

Dear Leader and the Mooch should fuel the jet! Maybe load many of their closest friends and former staff personnel for a mercy trip to the homeland....


19 posted on 09/06/2018 12:12:46 PM PDT by Hogblog
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: yesthatjallen

” When blood squirts from your eye...

and you puke pizza pie...

it’s E-b-o-l-a !”


20 posted on 09/06/2018 12:21:06 PM PDT by Beagle8U (A Muse once bit my Sister.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-28 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson