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Add to Preferred SourcesAfter more than a year of battling an Ebola virus outbreak that killed more than 2,200 people, UN officials are “cautiously optimistic” that the epidemic in the northeast Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will soon be history as the country gears up to face the emerging threat of coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
In an emotional ceremony on March 3, the last Ebola patient in the DRC – a woman called Masiko – was discharged from the treatment centre in Beni, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported.
“There are currently zero cases of Ebola in DRC after over a year of fighting this outbreak”, WHO Regional Director Dr. Matshidiso Moeti.
The milestone comes as countries increasingly report cases of respiratory disease caused by a new strain of the coronavirus, which first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year. To date, more than 60 additional countries have been affected.
Following the virus’s spread to the continent, the African Union and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention organized an emergency ministerial meeting last month where the DRC was identified among 13 countries most at risk of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) due to their direct travel links with China.
“Some countries in Africa, including DRC, are leveraging the capacity they have built up to test for Ebola, to test for COVID-19”, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the meeting. “This is a great example of how investing in health systems can pay dividends for health security.”
WHO’s Africa office this week held an emergency partnership meeting on coronavirus, aimed at boosting engagement and developing an effective preparedness and response plan for countries in the region.
Organizations in attendance included fellow UN agency the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), which believes that compared to countries with little experience in large-scale infection prevention and control, the DRC may be better positioned to prevent the spread of the coronavirus because of the Ebola measures already implemented.
UNFPA regional and country offices are now working to expand interventions in preparation for the potential spread of COVID-19.
Original source: UN News
Published on 03 March 2020