Ebola outbreak hopefully over
2003-04-09 00:28
Geneva - An outbreak of the incurable haemorrhagic fever Ebola, which has claimed 120 lives in northwestern Republic of Congo, seems to have been brought under control, the Red Cross and Red Crescent said on Tuesday.
No new cases of the highly contagious disease have been registered in the Kelle region, which was the epicentre of the outbreak, Didier Revol of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies announced.
On March 28, the head of the Congolese health ministry's agency dealing with the Ebola outbreak, Joseph Mboussa, said it had been brought under control in Mbomo, the other region where local people apparently caught it by eating the meat of primates.
"An exploratory team of Red Cross volunteers has for four days been around the other where the epidemic started," Revol told AFP, but he stressed that for an outbreak to be declared finished, there should be no cases over two 21-day periods.
"Our main concern is that most of the population in February fled Kelle to go into the forest. Slowly, they're coming back. Today, 30% to 40% have returned.
"But, these people surviving in the forest are eating primate meat. We will have to keep a close watch on them when they return," Revol added.
Ebola can be transmitted via the infected meat of gorillas and chimpanzees, many of which have died of the haemorrhagic fever.
A Princeton University ecologist, Peter Walsh, called for the conservation status of each species to be shifted from "endangered" to "critically endangered" in a Nature article published on Monday, because of hunting for bush meat and the deadly Ebola virus.
Bush meat
Revol traced the beginning of the latest outbreak in the central African country to three hunters who in January ate infected bush meat and died a week later.
It remained difficult for aid workers to "get the safety message across" to people, recommending preventive measures such as isolating patients, rapidly notifying health services, and renouncing traditional funeral rites that include washing and kissing the bodies of the dead, he said.
In February, four teachers were attacked by a lynch mob after a sorcerer said that they had been spreading the disease to steal souls and acquire supernatural powers, Revol said.
The most recent toll from the outbreak given to the UN World Health Organisation by the health ministry in Brazzaville dates back to April 2.
Officials then reported 120 deaths in 135 registered cases in the Kelle and Mbomo districts, which lie 700km and 800km respectively from Brazzaville, in the densely forested Cuvette Ouest province.
There is no known medical cure for the disease, which is characterised by high fever, diarrhoea, bleeding from the nose and gums, and can induce massive internal haemorrhages.
Particularly virulent strains kill around 90 percent of victims, for whom any hope of survival lies in swift and effective treatment.
The bodies of hundreds of great apes killed by Ebola have been found in the Lossi wildlife sanctuary between Kelle and Mbomo, according to staff on Ecofac, a European Union-funded project to safeguard the ecosystems of central African forests.
Other primates have died in Odzala National Park, the biggest in central Africa, near Mbomo.
Experts from Congo, neighbouring Gabon, France and the WHO are among those working to help patients and contain the current outbreak. The affected regions were placed under quarantine.