CONGO:Health workers launched an emergency operation yesterday to combat an outbreak of deadly Ebola haemorrhagic fever in southern Congo.
Their efforts to fight the outbreak included airlifting supplies, setting up isolation tents and disinfecting contaminated areas. The World Health Organisation (WHO) and medical NGOs such as Médecins Sans Frontiérès (MSF) joined local health authorities in a major logistics operation as they attempted to contain the outbreak in Kasai Occidental province of Democratic Republic of Congo.
The government, citing test results from international laboratories, said on Monday at least five cases of Ebola had been confirmed in the province, where authorities have reported over 160 deaths among 352 sick people over four months.
Several African countries have suffered previous outbreaks of the highly contagious disease, which causes death in 50 to 90 per cent of cases and is transmitted by contact with blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected persons. No vaccine or treatment exists that can cure Ebola fever.
MSF was reinforcing its health team in the Kasai Occidental village of Kampungu, the epicentre of the latest outbreak, and had flown three tonnes of supplies to the provincial capital Kananga for distribution in the worst-affected areas.
This included tents and plastic sheeting. "We have to build structures to isolate the patients," said Pascale Zintzen, a spokeswoman for MSF in Kinshasa. Medicines and water and sanitation materials, such as water tanks and chlorine for disinfectant, were also being sent.
"Ebola Kits" were also sent - protective gloves, boots, glasses, masks, uniforms, aprons and hoods - for the medical teams. The disease is so contagious that protective clothing can only be used once and then must be carefully destroyed.
Meanwhile, Congolese health authorities imposed a quarantine on the affected region, which includes the towns of Mweka and Luebo.
The remoteness of the affected areas and Congo's poor transport links magnified the problems of tackling the outbreak. "It's a real logistical challenge," Mr Zintzen said.
In addition to a medical team which has been in Kampungu since early this month, MSF were sending more doctors, nurses, logisticians, water-and-sanitation specialists, an epidemiologist and an expert in Ebola fever.
Patients present with high fever, headaches, vomiting, diarrhoea and in a few cases external bleeding. Within two or three days, they die from dehydration.
The WHO said it was not clear whether the deaths had been caused by Ebola or the presence of other diseases such as Shigella dysentery, which is borne by contaminated food or water.
No cases have been reported so far in east Congo, where heavy fighting in recent weeks forced thousands to flee their homes.
Kasai is east of Kikwit, the site of a major Ebola outbreak in 1995, which killed 250 among 315 people.