The World Health Organization said Wednesday the deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is now an international health emergency after the virus spread this week to a city of 2 million people.

The WHO declared the outbreak a "public health emergency of international concern," a rare designation only used for the gravest epidemics.

"It is time for the world to take notice," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement, as he accepted the advice of his advisory board to invoke emergency provisions only used by the U.N. health agency four times previously.

A WHO expert committee declined on three previous occasions to advise the United Nations health agency to make the declaration, but other experts say the outbreak has long met the conditions.

More than 1,600 people have died since August in the second deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, which is unfolding in a region described as a war zone.

This week the first Ebola case was confirmed in Goma, a major regional crossroads on the Rwandan border with an international airport. Experts have feared this for months.

A declaration of a global health emergency often brings greater international attention and aid. </s> The World Health Organization on Wednesday declared the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo a “public health emergency of international concern,” a rare designation only used for the gravest epidemics.

“It is time for the world to take notice,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement, as he accepted the advice of his advisory board to invoke the emergency provision (PHEIC), only used by the UN health agency four times previously.

Those included the H1N1, or swine flu, pandemic of 2009, the spread of poliovirus in 2014, the Ebola epidemic that devastated parts of West Africa from 2014 to 2016 and the surge of the Zika virus in 2016.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it “welcomed” the decision.

“While it does not change the reality on the ground for victims or partners engaged in the response, we hope it will bring the international attention that this crisis deserves,” the IFRC said in a statement.

The WHO’s international health regulations, drafted in 2005, say that the international emergency label should apply to a situation that is “serious, unusual or unexpected; carries implications for public health beyond the affected State’s national border; and may require immediate international action”.

More than 1,600 people have died from Ebola since August 1, when the haemorrhagic virus erupted in DR Congo’s North Kivu and spread to neighbouring Ituri. </s> • The World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo a global health emergency on Wednesday.
• The declaration, which critics say is long overdue, could increase the amount of funding and assistance other countries are willing to provide to the response effort.
• This marks only the fifth time the WHO has declared a public health emergency of international concern.

The World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo a global health emergency on Wednesday, a move that is likely to escalate international attention on a crisis that has flared for a year despite aggressive efforts to stamp it out.

The declaration, which critics have contended is long overdue, could increase the amount of funding and assistance other countries are willing to provide to the response effort.

Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the public health emergency of international concern — known as a PHEIC— as his organization and its partners scramble to contain what they've described as the most challenging outbreak ever and struggled to raise the funding needed to finance the operation. He did so on the recommendation of a panel of outside experts.

The emergency committee had recommended against the declaration of a PHEIC for the outbreak on three previous occasions.

"This is still a regional emergency and by no means a global threat," said the head of the emergency committee, Robert Steffen.

Tedros, as the director-general is known, reconvened the group after health officials discovered Sunday that a man infected with Ebola had traveled to Goma, a city of 2 million south of the outbreak zone. Goma is located near DRC's border with Rwanda and it is a regional transportation hub. The man, a pastor, has since died.

Though there is no indication yet whether the man infected anyone in Goma, the presence of a case there raises serious concerns. It had long been feared that the disease might take root in Goma, and that the city would serve as a launching pad to send cases both to regional neighbors and potentially further afield.

Read more: 1,400 people have died so far in the second largest outbreak of Ebola in history

To date the outbreak has spread broadly within North Kivu and Ituri, two northeastern provinces on DRC's border with Uganda, South Sudan, and Rwanda. But so far only four cases are known to have crossed the border into Uganda. Three members of a family traveling from the funeral of an Ebola victim became ill and went to hospital for care; they were quickly isolated. All three died in early June, but they appear not to have infected anyone in Uganda.

On Wednesday, Uganda's health minister announced an infected woman from DRC crossed into Uganda to sell fish; she later returned to DRC, where she died. Authorities are looking for people who were in contact with her while she was in Uganda so they can be vaccinated.

August 1 marks the first anniversary of the declaration that an outbreak was underway in the DRC. Since then, more than 2,500 cases have been reported and the death toll is approaching 1,700 people.

In that time, nearly 164,000 people have been vaccinated with an experimental Ebola vaccine being developed by Merck. While the WHO credits the vaccine for preventing a larger disaster, the outbreak response has struggled to find a way to bring this outbreak to an end.

Read more: An Ebola outbreak has killed more than 1,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and containment efforts are being hampered by armed attacks

The outbreak is occurring in a part of DRC that has been a conflict zone for decades. A United Nation peacekeeping force operates in the area and has had to provide security for outbreak responders who have come under attack from people in the region, some of whom believe Ebola was brought to the region by the outsiders.

Seven people working on the response have been killed, teams trying to conduct safe burials to prevent transmission have been attacked, and Ebola treatment centers have been fire bombed. The violence and the distrust has sharply impeded the outbreak responders' ability to bring the outbreak under control and it's not clear at this point what will swing the trajectory toward a conclusion of the outbreak.

This marks only the fifth time the WHO has declared a public health emergency of international concern. The previous PHEICs were the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and the Zika outbreak in Latin America in 2016. Setbacks in the polio eradication effort in 2014 led WHO to declare the spread of wild poliovirus a public health emergency; that PHEIC remains in place today.
• The latest reports from Congo show patients not usually known to contract Ebola are infected: newborn babies
• An Ebola case has been discovered in a city of 1.2 million people — a 'game changer' that makes fighting the outbreak much more difficult
• 9 dangerous diseases that could be prevented by vaccines within the next decade, from HIV to cancer </s> The deadly Ebola outbreak in Congo is now an international health emergency, the World Health Organization announced Wednesday after the virus spread this week to a city of 2 million people . </s> GENEVA: The World Health Organization on Wednesday declared the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo a "public health emergency of international concern," a rare designation only used for the gravest epidemics.

The year-old Ebola epidemic in eastern DR Congo, the second deadliest on record, has largely been contained to remote areas, but this week saw a patient diagnosed with the virus in provincial capital Goma, the first case in a major urban hub.

ALSO READ: Death toll due to Ebola outbreak breaches 1000-mark in DR Congo

"It is time for the world to take notice," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement, as he accepted the advice of his advisory board to invoke the emergency provision, activated by the UN health agency only four times previously.

Those included the H1N1, or swine flu, pandemic of 2009, the spread of poliovirus in 2014, the Ebola epidemic that devastated parts of West Africa from 2014 to 2016 and the surge of the Zika virus in 2016.

The Ebola virus is highly contagious and has an average fatality rate of around 50 per cent. It is transmitted to humans from wild animals and spreads among people through close contact with the blood, body fluids, secretions or organs of an infected person.

Responders had hoped that this Ebola outbreak would be easier to control, thanks in part to a new vaccine.

While more than 160,000 people in the affected provinces of North Kivu and Ituri have been vaccinated, containment efforts have been hampered by chronic unrest in the region and a lack of trust in communities for health workers.

A panel of top WHO officials that met in Geneva on Wednesday to issue the emergency call expressed "disappointment about delays in funding which have constrained the response."

A fresh UN funding appeal for several hundred million dollars to cover the ensuing six months is expected in the coming days.

Reacting to the emergency declaration, the president of Doctors Without Borders, Joanne Liu, called for "a change of gear" in response to the outbreak.

"We need to take stock of what is working and what is not working," she said.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies welcomed the decision, voicing hope that the emergency call "will bring the international attention that this crisis deserves."

Since August last year, the DRC Ebola outbreak has killed more than 1,600 people out of more than 2,500 cases.

WHO has held off on making the emergency declaration on three previous occasions, but the confirmation of a case in North Kivu's capital Goma escalated the crisis.

Tedros this week called the Goma patient a "potential game-changer," because the city is a "gateway" to Africa's Great Lakes region and the wider world.

The Goma patient has been described as an evangelical preacher who travelled to Goma from Butembo, one of the towns hardest hit by Ebola.

He had reportedly touched several Ebola patients in Butembo and concealed his identity in order to evade health screenings while en route to Goma.

The emergency committee cited the patient, who has died, as a "specific cause for concern".

Even if the risk of global spread is "still low", the Goma case posed "worrying signs of possible extension of the epidemic," the committee said.

A city of about one million people, Goma sits on the northern shore of Lake Kivu, adjacent to Rwanda's town of Gisenyi.

It has a port that links to DRC city Bukavu and the South Kivu province as well as an airport with flights to the capital Kinshasa, Uganda's Entebbe and Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.

At the Goma-Gisenyi crossing on Wednesday, megaphone announcements instructed all travellers to wash their hands "to prevent Ebola sickness virus," using basins of water with added bleach.

Health workers wearing yellow high-visibility jackets took the temperature of people crossing the border, in both directions.

WHO's announcement provoked a mixed response from DR Congo's Health Minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga, who has been critical of the motive of some non-governmental organisations in raising donations for the crisis.

He said that while he "accepts" WHO's decision, he hoped it was not "the result of pressure from different groups... who want to use the statement as an opportunity to raise funds for humanitarian actors".

"We hope there will be greater transparency and accountability by humanitarian actors in how they use their funds to respond to this Ebola outbreak," he said in a statement.

The WHO's international health regulations, drafted in 2005, say that the emergency label should apply to a situation that is "an extraordinary event that poses a public health risk to other countries through international spread and that potentially requires a coordinated international response."

Some fear that making the emergency call could trigger border closures, which the head of the WHO emergency panel, Robert Steffen, strongly urged against. </s> The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday officially declared the current Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

WHO chief, Tedros Ghebreyesus, who announced the declaration in Geneva, called on countries to “take notice and redouble our efforts”.

The announcement followed the fourth meeting of the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee assessing the outbreak, according to a statement by the UN.

This is coming ahead of the first anniversary of the complex outbreak in the volatile Eastern part of the country in August adjudged the second worst outbreak of the disease.

Ghebreyesus said that it was time to “work together in solidarity with the DRC to end this outbreak and build a better health system”, for its people.

So far, there have been more than 2,500 cases of infection, and nearly 1,670 have died in the provinces of Ituri and North Kivu.

Multiple armed groups and lack of local trust have hampered efforts to get the outbreak under control in the area.

“Extraordinary work has been done for almost a year under the most difficult circumstances.

“We all owe it to these responders – coming from not just WHO but also Government, partners and communities – to shoulder more of the burden,” the WHO said.

A Public Health Emergency of International Concern, according to the WHO’s International Health Regulations, is an “extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response.

The International Health Regulations constitute a binding legal agreement involving 196 countries across the globe.

The definition means a situation that is serious, sudden, unusual or unexpected, that may require immediate international action.

It also applies to a situation that carries implications for public health beyond the affected State’s national border, the UN said.

The WHO committee cited recent developments in the outbreak in making its recommendation.

These include the first confirmed case in Goma, a city of almost two million people on the border with Rwanda, and the gateway to the rest of DRC and the world.

The committee also issued specific conclusions and advice to affected countries, their neighbours, and for all states, in terms of how the outbreak needs to be dealt with moving forward.

It expressed disappointment in recent delays in securing more international funds to fight the disease, which has constrained the response.

Members also reinforced the need to protect livelihoods of the people most affected by the outbreak by keeping transport routes and borders open.

The experts said it was “essential to avoid the punitive economic consequences of travel and trade restrictions, on affected communities.” </s> The Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo declared a new outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Bikoro in Equateur Province today (8 May). The outbreak declaration occurred after laboratory results confirmed two cases of EVD. The Ministry of Health of Democratic of the Congo (DRC) informed WHO that two out of five […]

The Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo declared a new outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Bikoro in Equateur Province today (8 May). The...



Source : http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Appa-sourceTheAfric... </s> KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Congo's health ministry says the latest Ebola outbreak has now become the worst in the country's recorded history with 319 confirmed and probable cases.

The ministry said late Friday that the deadly virus has killed about 198 people since the outbreak was declared Aug. 1 in the volatile east. Those dead include 163 confirmed Ebola cases, with 35 probable deaths.

This is Congo's 10th outbreak since 1976, when the hemorrhagic fever was first identified in Yambuku.

Health Minister Dr. Oly Ilunga Kalenga said the figures now exceed that outbreak. He said no other epidemic has been as complex.

Armed groups vying for control of Congo's mineral-rich east have staged regular attacks in Congo's Ituri and North Kivu provinces, complicating the response by health officials who are also meeting community resistance. </s> The current Ebola outbreak in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the worst in the country's recorded history, with 319 confirmed and probable cases, resulting in 198 deaths, the country's health ministry said.

Ebola virus disease, which causes an often-fatal type of hemorrhagic fever, is endemic to the region. It's the 10th outbreak the Democratic Republic of the Congo has seen since 1976, the year that scientists first identified the deadly virus near the eponymous Ebola River.

"No other epidemic in the world has been as complex as the one we are currently experiencing," the country's health minister, Dr. Oly Ilunga Kalenga, said in a statement late on Friday.

The outbreak is also the third most severe in the recorded history of the African continent, following 28,652 cases in the 2013-2016 outbreak in multiple West African nations and 425 cases in the 2000 outbreak in Uganda, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Among the total amount of people who have reported symptoms of hemorrhagic fever since the country's latest outbreak began Aug. 1, 284 of them have tested positive for Ebola virus disease. Nearly 28,000 people have been vaccinated in the outbreak zone since Aug. 8, according to the health ministry.

The outbreak has been heavily concentrated in the northeastern province of North Kivu, where about half of all cases have been recorded in the conflict-torn city of Beni, which is home to 800,000 people. People have also been infected in neighboring Ituri province.

North Kivu and Ituri are among the most populous provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and share borders with Uganda and Rwanda. They are also awash with violence and insecurity, particularly in the mineral-rich borderlands where militia activity has surged in the past year, all of which complicates the response to the outbreak.

There is also misinformation and mistrust from the community, partly due to the security situation, and there's a reluctance among some residents to seek care or allow health workers to vaccinate, conduct contact tracing and perform safe burials, according to the health ministry.

"Since their arrival in the region, the response teams have faced threats, physical assaults, repeated destruction of their equipment and kidnapping. Two of our colleagues in the Rapid Response Medical Unit even lost their lives in an attack," the health minister said in his statement Friday night.

Although the outbreak remains "dangerous and unpredictable," new measures to overcome these challenges are having a "positive impact," the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement Thursday after a joint mission to assess the situation.

"The fact that we have so far prevented Ebola from spreading into neighboring countries is a testament to the hard work and determination of staff from all partners," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in the statement.

The United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) has recently adopted an "active approach" to the armed groups operating in North Kivu, providing a "period of calm" in and around Beni, although some attacks have persisted in surrounding villages.

"We are facing numerous complex challenges, but it’s encouraging and inspiring to see that our efforts to deliver as one UN have been extremely successful in many hotspots and will help to end the outbreak and save lives," United Nations under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix said in the statement.

Last month, the WHO heeded the recommendation of an expert advisory committee to not declare the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern -- a proclamation that would have mobilized more resources and garnered global attention.

The committee chairman, Robert Steffen, said they came to the decision by looking at three main criteria.

"Is it extraordinary? Is there a risk of cross-border spread? Is there potential for requiring international response?" Steffen told reporters in a teleconference Oct. 17.

Despite its conclusion, the committee emphasized in a statement that the Congolese government, WHO and partners "must intensify the current response" to the ongoing outbreak and this "should be supported by the entire international community," otherwise "the situation is likely to deteriorate significantly."

"I’ve accepted the recommendation of the committee but this does not mean that we are not taking the outbreak seriously," WHO's director-general, Tedros, told reporters. "We will not rest until this outbreak is finished."
The World Health Organisation declares the most recent Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.