A new case of Ebola virus disease has confirmed in the Central Africa country who is also battling with the COVID-19 pandemic and Measles Outbreaks. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) who announced the new case of Ebola on Friday in the city of Beni in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC);
"Preliminary information shows that he is a 26-year-old man in Beni territory," Our teams, in collaboration with the WHO, are already on the ground to deepen the investigations and implement public health actions" - the multisectoral committee for the response to the epidemic said in a statement.
“While not welcome news, this is an event we anticipated. We kept response teams in Beni and other high-risk areas for precisely this reason,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.
As part of the active Ebola surveillance system in place to respond to this ongoing outbreak in DRC, thousands of alerts are still being investigated every day. An alert is a person who has symptoms that could be due to Ebola, or any death in a high-risk area that could have been as a result of Ebola.
As with all confirmed cases, efforts are already underway to find everyone who may have been in contact with the person in order to offer them the vaccine and monitor their health status.
“WHO has worked side by side with health responders from the DRC for over 18 months and our teams are right now supporting the investigation into this latest case,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. “Although the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic adds challenges, we will continue this joint effort until we can declare the end of this Ebola outbreak together.”
The news of the confirmed case came minutes after the conclusion of a meeting of the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee on Ebola in DRC. The Emergency Committee will reconvene next week in order to re-evaluate their recommendations in light of this new information.
Prior to this, the last person who was confirmed to have Ebola in DRC tested negative twice and was discharged from a treatment centre on 3 March 2020. As of 10 April 2020, 3456 confirmed and probable cases and 2276 deaths have occurred as a result of the outbreak.
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