Stop tradition, stop Ebola
2003-12-05 20:52
Geneva - Health experts hope to stop a tradition in northwestern Congo, of touching people who have died, in an attempt to contain an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus which has claimed at least 29 lives, the World Health Organisation said on Friday.
"This illness incites a lot of fear and a lot of myths," WHO spokesperson, Fadela Chaib, told a regular news conference in Geneva.
People in the town of Mbomo, hit hardest by the latest outbreak of the haemorrhagic fever, believe that touching the body of a deceased person proves to the community they had nothing to do with the death, explained Chaib.
A team of five experts from WHO headquarters in Geneva, including a medical anthropologist, travelled to the country on Sunday to relieve a local group of medics and would also to try to dispel this myth, she said.
They would try to encourage people to honour their dead with another ceremony which is normally used when someone dies abroad, she added.
WHO said so far 48 cases had been identified of Ebola, which is characterised by high fever, diarrhoea and bleeding from the nose and gums, and can induce massive internal haemorrhages.
Earlier in the week, the Congolese health ministry had put the figure at 47 and said a further 98 people were held to be at risk and under observation in Mbomo after direct contact with Ebola patients or the bodies of those who had died.
Ebola is thought to be contracted by people who eat the flesh of infected animals in the central African rain forest.
The latest outbreak began on October 31 in Mbomo.
In 2002, the Cuvette West region was quarantined due to an Ebola outbreak that claimed more than 100 lives.