Congo declares Ebola flare-up over after rapid response

DAKAR: Democratic Republic of Congo declared an end to an Ebola outbreak believed to have killed 33 people after what experts hailed as a swift response to the flare-up in one of the world’s most difficult environments.

Tuesday marked 42 days since the last detected case of the virus, the length of two incubation periods considered long enough to declare an outbreak over.

The flare-up, first detected in the rural village of Ikoko Impenge in northwest Congo in April, was dealt with rapidly by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Congolese authorities, including the deployment of an experimental vaccine given to over 3,300 people.

That helped contain the impact of the virus even when it reached the city of Mbandaka, a crowded trading hub of 1.5 million people on the Congo River with direct boat and plane links to the sprawling capital Kinshasa.

“I declare from this day ... the end of the Ebola ... epidemic in Equateur Province, Democratic Republic of Congo,” Health Minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga said in a statement.

Ebola, believed to be spread over long distances by bats, causes hemorrhagic fever, vomiting and diarrhea and is spread through direct contact with body fluids.

It often spreads to humans via infected bush meat.

Its arrival in Mbandaka in May turned the outbreak into an international concern as airports in West Africa set up Ebola screenings and the region shuddered at the memory of the epidemic that killed at least 11,300 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia between 2013 and 2016.

But despite the deaths, the containment of this latest outbreak, Congo’s ninth since the virus was detected near the Ebola river in the 1970s, was considered a success, given the difficulties faced in one of the world’s most challenging environments. — Reuters