Case in Africa’s most populous country was detected in a woman who had travelled from Uganda
Nigeria has confirmed an Ebola case in its capital, Abuja, after a woman who arrived from Uganda tested positive for the virus, the health ministry said.
The woman began showing symptoms on 7 October and was admitted to a hospital in Abuja four days later, where she was later diagnosed with Ebola. It is unclear when she arrived in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.
Continue reading...Opposition to US-led quarantine center in Kenya follows sweeping funding cuts and withdrawal from WHO
An eighth person in Kenya has tested positive for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola in the country’s first-ever cluster of cases of the virus, as the second-largest outbreak in history has killed more than 4,300 and sickened more than 9,000 people in the region.
It highlights the diminished role the US has played in the worsening Ebola outbreak by building a controversial quarantine center in Kenya, pulling back health support globally, and banning travelers from certain countries. All of this has also reduced the ability to identify and respond to the outbreak and exacerbated mistrust.
Continue reading...Health minister says 28 contacts identified after death of citizen who arrived from DRC on Saturday
Kenya has reported its first-ever Ebola death, the health minister announced on Tuesday, as the disease continues to spread rapidly through the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the outbreak was announced in May.
This is the 17th outbreak of the highly infectious, often deadly disease in the DRC. As of 2 October, 4,082 people had died out of 8,463 confirmed cases in the country since the emergence of the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, for which there is still no vaccine nor specific treatment.
Continue reading...Health minister says 28 contacts identified after death of citizen who arrived from DRC on Saturday
Kenya has reported its first-ever Ebola death, the health minister announced on Tuesday, as the disease continues to spread rapidly through the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the outbreak was announced in May.
This is the 17th outbreak of the highly infectious, often deadly disease in the DRC. As of 2 October, 4,082 people had died out of 8,463 confirmed cases in the country since the emergence of the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, for which there is still no vaccine nor specific treatment.
Continue reading...Almost 3,500 people have died in outbreak and experts say more must be done to ensure Bundibugyo is under control
Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have announced that the Ebola outbreak ravaging parts of the country has reached its peak.
For the first time since the epidemic was declared in May, the numbers of people becoming infected is slowing down, according to officials.
Continue reading...At least 2,325 people have been killed, according to government data, surpassing the death toll from 2018-20 outbreak
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is now the deadliest in the country’s history with at least 2,325 people killed, according to government data, surpassing the toll from the 2018-20 outbreak.
Congo’s public health institute said on Sunday that confirmed cases had risen to 4,945, including 101 new cases detected in the previous 24 hours.
Continue reading...Man dies in Bas-Uele after travelling from Haut-Uele, as head of WHO says outbreak on track to be deadliest ever
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has spread to a sixth province, officials have said, a day after the head of the World Health Organization said the outbreak was on track to surpass the deadliest in history, which killed at least 11,000 people more than a decade ago.
The current outbreak has killed more than 2,100 people out of more than 4,500 cases, according to the latest government figures released on Tuesday. At the same point in the 2014-16 outbreak in west Africa, the previous most deadly outbreak, 755 cases had been recorded, according to WHO data.
Continue reading...Cases have passed 4,000 and health watchdog plans to go door to door to find patients in major response escalation
The virus causing a massive outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo could be mutating, health officials fear, as confirmed cases pass 4,000.
Africa’s public health watchdog said the time for incremental action was over as they announced plans to scale up every aspect of the response and go “door to door” looking for patients.
Continue reading...UK resident was evacuated from Democratic Republic of the Congo where there is an outbreak of the disease
A humanitarian worker is being monitored at a specialist hospital in London after potential exposure to the Ebola virus.
The UK resident was medically evacuated from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where the worker had been treating patients with the disease, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said.
Continue reading...Aid workers are first known people to quarantine at facility, which sparked huge opposition in Kenya
Seven American aid workers who had been in Congo to fight the Ebola outbreak are quarantining at a new isolation facility in Kenya after the US government introduced travel restrictions, the head of a US charity employing them told Reuters.
The aid workers are the first known people to quarantine at the facility, which has sparked huge opposition in Kenya and is at the heart of a legal case in which a court has ordered the work to be suspended. Construction continued, however, according to US officials and satellite imagery reviewed by Reuters.
Continue reading...Experts say cuts have hindered the response to DRC’s Ebola outbreak and resulted in ‘significant numbers’ of deaths
Elon Musk has an Ebola problem. SpaceX stock dropped precipitously after its initial public offering, and Tesla faces a wave of lawsuits. But instead of focusing on his companies, Musk has posted frequently on X about the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which he helped dismantle – or, in his words, feed into the woodchipper – last year.
“Elon’s USAID crash-out over the past week has been a thing to behold,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former top USAID official who oversaw the agency’s Ebola response in 2014-2015 and the president of Refugees International. “In a way, it’s helpful that Elon is doing this, because it’s putting attention back on the issue of what he did last year.”
Continue reading...Fears over ‘huge community transmission’ as modelling predicts thousands of deaths in DRC by September
The whereabouts of almost 300 people who have tested positive for Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is unknown, according to Africa’s top public health official.
The humanitarian crisis amid the conflict in the affected areas means more than 1 million people are living in camps to which health workers have no access, Dr Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said on Thursday.
Continue reading...French health ministry says patient’s contacts are being traced and that risk to European public is very low
The first case of Ebola has been confirmed in France, the country’s health ministry has said, in a doctor who had returned from a humanitarian mission to an area affected by the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The patient was transferred to a specialist facility and was in a stable condition, the ministry said in a statement. “All precautionary measures, including the patient’s isolation, were taken upon his arrival in the country, with transfer to the hospital under secure conditions to prevent any risk of contamination.”
Continue reading...Decision comes after Aden Duale was held in contempt for ignoring previous high court ruling to stop work
Kenya’s health minister told a court he had ordered preparations for a US-run Ebola quarantine facility to stop, after being held in contempt for ignoring a previous order to end work.
Many Kenyans strongly oppose the facility, with deadly protests erupting since the complex was announced in May for US citizens evacuated from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is grappling with a widespread Ebola outbreak.
Continue reading...Number of people infected now tops 1,000 though health officials say the global risk remains low
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will tap $107m in emergency funding for Ebola outbreak response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda, officials said on Thursday.
The continued Ebola outbreak in the DRC comes as Canada, Mexico and the US jointly host the Fifa World Cup, attracting visitors from around the world. The officials said the outbreak, now the third largest on record, required “strong immediate support”, but that the global risk remained low.
Continue reading...Modelling from US CDC shows Ebola spread could be on ‘dangerous trajectory’, but experts warn outbreaks can be very hard to predict
Central Africa’s Ebola outbreak could spread to be similar in scale to the worst outbreak in history, west Africa’s 2014-2016 outbreak that killed more than 11,000 people, according to a new analysis by US health officials.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday published a range of scenarios generated by computer models, from 10,000 cases to more than 20,000. In the west Africa outbreak, more than 28,000 cases were reported.
Continue reading...Plan departs from policy of bringing CDC staff back to US for treatment and offering support to all health workers
Former top US officials and other experts are urging the Trump administration to abandon plans for an Ebola quarantine and treatment centre in Kenya, as the union for workers with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls for Americans exposed to Ebola to be brought home for treatment.
Soon after the US revealed it was setting up a field hospital in Kenya for the Ebola quarantine and treatment of Americans, the Kenyan high court blocked the order – but the Kenyan and US governments moved forward anyway, with the first American responders reportedly landing at the Laikipia airbase on Saturday.
Continue reading...Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the virus ‘had a big head start’ but that the response was catching up
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo could have begun as early as January, the head of the World Health Organization said, giving the virus “a big head start”.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said the response was being hindered by blanket travel restrictions and highlighted high levels of community mistrust and low levels of contact tracing as key concerns.
Continue reading...Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus makes appeal after protests against protocols for handling victims’ bodies in Ituri province
Containing the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo requires community cooperation and is “everybody’s business”, the World Health Organization has said.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the organisation’s director general, made the plea on Sunday during a visit to eastern Congo where some residents have protested against stringent medical protocols for handling victims’ bodies.
Continue reading...Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus calls for ceasefire among armed groups to help avoid deaths from preventable disease
The death rate of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is between 30% and 50%, the World Health Organization has said, as its head arrived in the country to support efforts to contain the disease.
Anaïs Legand, from the WHO’s high threat pathogens team, said the revised death rate estimate is based on confirmed cases. “It’s huge. It means that up to five out of 10 people are likely to die,” Legand told reporters in Geneva.
Continue reading...