Ebola is set to spread further due to instability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, an Irish medical professional working with Médecins Sans Frontières has warned.
The warning comes after an Ebola treatment facility in eastern Congo was burned down by a crowd angry at being prevented from collecting the body of a local man, reports RTE.
Around 600 suspected Ebola cases have been recorded in the DRC, along with more than 140 deaths, prompting the World Health Organization to declare a public health emergency of international concern.
Fears are mounting in the DRC over the spread of the Bundibugyo strain of the virus, reports RTE.
The WHO has described the outbreak as “extraordinary” given that there are no approved Bundibugyo-specific treatments or vaccines, unlike those available for the Ebola-Zaire strains.
MSF is actively operating in the affected regions, reports RTE.
Dr Eve Robinson, an epidemiologist with MSF, is currently based in Goma, near the DRC’s border with Rwanda.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, she said the outbreak began several weeks ago in Ituri in the northeast of the country, and that the “situation has evolved rapidly” since then, reports RTE.
She said the current figures for suspected cases and deaths are likely to be “an underestimate of the true situation.”
Dr Robinson said MSF has already established a treatment centre in the worst-affected area, and that it is already running at full capacity, reports RTE.
She described the situation in Ituri as extremely challenging, with clusters of suspected and confirmed cases beginning to spread into neighbouring provinces.
“I’m very concerned and MSF is very concerned. Where I am here in Goma, although we have only had one case, it feels like the calm before the storm,” she said, adding that she expected the situation to look very different within a week, reports RTE.
She noted there are significant trade routes connecting Ituri to her current location in North Kivu province.
“We are expecting this outbreak to spread further,” she said, reports RTE.
Dr Robinson said community engagement is among the most essential pillars in managing any Ebola outbreak.
She said fear and tension are inevitable in any such situation, reports RTE.
“Especially in this region, where there is already a lot of active conflicts, so tensions are already high. I think this is going to be further exacerbated with this disease outbreak.
“So one of the really important pillars is working with the communities,” she said, reports RTE.
“You don’t control an Ebola outbreak in the treatment centres, although they are really important. You control it by working in and with the communities.”
She said this involved health promotion, educating communities about the disease, its symptoms, the necessity of isolation, and above all emphasising that safe and dignified burials are “absolutely vital to control the outbreak,” reports RTE.
Dr Robinson said it could take several months before a vaccine specific to this strain of Ebola is developed.
US Ebola patient in Berlin hospital not critically ill, family tests negative
A US citizen who contracted Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo is not critically ill, and his wife and four children have tested negative for the virus, the Berlin hospital treating the family has confirmed.
“Because the course of the illness can change, he remains under close observation and is receiving treatment,” Charite university hospital said in a statement. “He is being cared for in the high-security area of the specialised isolation unit,” reports RTE.
The patient’s wife and four children “are currently asymptomatic and quarantined in a separate part of the unit – an initial PCR test detected no Ebola virus infection.”
The patient, identified by the Serge Christian mission organisation as medical missionary Dr Peter Stafford, contracted Ebola while treating patients in the DRC, where he had been living with his family, reports RTE.
The White House confirmed that Dr Stafford and his family had been transferred to Germany as it is 12 hours closer to the DRC than the United States.
Charite noted that the patient’s room had been made as child-friendly as possible, and that the children were able to see their father “through a glass partition, and family members can communicate via an intercom,” reports RTE.
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