International teams fighting deadly Ebola virus in DR Congo

Sep 24 2007

Another four more cases of the Ebola virus have been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, bringing the total in the country to nine to date.

However health officials suspect the real figure could be much higher as many unexplained deaths that have occurred over the last 4 months may also be linked to the virus; authorities suspect a more realistic figure may be over 160.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says there are a suspected 400 cases but the number changes each day as people become better informed on how to recognize and identify suspect cases and report them to the local health authorities.

But the WHO says other diseases, including typhoid, malaria and shigella, may be responsible for some of the deaths now suspected of being caused by Ebola.

Christiana Salvi, a representative for the WHO in the Congo, says the most recent cases of Ebola came from the same zone as the original confirmed samples.

Salvi says efforts are being made to get the message across to the population on how to avoid the risk of transmission and the health ministry has been educating the public on the dangers of Ebola by distributing leaflets and broadcasting radio and television programs concerning the virus across the heavily forested region where villages are linked only by inferior dirt roads.

The WHO says when all the suspect cases have been tested and all contacts traced they will then be able to say the outbreak is under control.

Ebola is a highly infectious disease, which can be spread through direct contact with the blood, body fluids, or body tissue of an infected person; there is no cure for the virus.

International medical personnel and supplies are being airlifted to the remote region of central Congo to combat what is rapidly becoming the world's most serious outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in years.

Health officials have voiced the possibility that new cases will continue to emerge for months and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says a new town with a reported suspect case emerges on an almost daily basis.

The center of the outbreak is three towns in Congo's Kasai Occidental province and the affected area appears to stretch for more than 100 miles and has a single dirt-and-grass airstrip.

Some villages have reportedly been abandoned and locals appear terrified of contracting the highly contagious disease for which there is no cure.

Symptoms of the disease includes flu-like symptoms, such as high fever, headaches and diarrhea and hemorrhaging.

The virus is transmitted via blood and bodily fluids and caregivers and those burying victims are particularly at risk.

International experts including epidemiologists, virologists, laboratory experts and logisticians from the MoH, WHO, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) are in the country helping in the fight against the deadly virus.

In the last decade cases of Ebola have been reported in Congo, Sudan, Uganda, Gabon and South Africa; in 2003 an outbreak in the Congo killed 128 people and an outbreak there in 1995 killed 250.