HEALTH-AFRICA: WHO dispels rumours of a new Ebola outbreak

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

HARARE, Jan 11 2001 (IPS) - Rumours of viral haemorrhagic fever (VHF) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been dispelled by the World Health Organisation (WHO) after a team sent to investigate the case found that the disease was not the deadly ebola.

The WHO, whose Africa regional office is based in Harare, Zimbabwe, says it has investigated persistent rumours in Dungu, Bengadi, Isiro, Buta, Nyankunde and Bunia, and samples have been negative for Ebola.

The rumours say five people have died from a lethal ebola-like fever in the DRC.

Before the reports were confirmed, Dr. Sam Okware, chairperson of Uganda’s Ebola National Task Force, told journalists in the capital Kampala last week that all local health authorities on the border with the DRC had been instructed to be on the alert.

WHO also stepped up surveillance efforts to ensure that the disease does not spread into Uganda.

“As part of these ongoing operations, WHO is currently investigating unverified reports of two additional cases for which few clinical details have been reported in Bunia,” said a WHO statement, made available to IPS, on Thursday.

Medical experts say the onset of the outbreak of Ebola in Gulu, Uganda, has heightened awareness of viral haemorrhagic fevers in the region.

Gulu, on the border with Sudan, hit international headlines last year when an outbreak of ebola epidemic took its toll on the war-ravaged town.

This fear heightened, on Jan 9, after the Ugandan Ministry of Health reported a confirmed case of Ebola haemorrhagic fever in Gulu district, where rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) operate. This patient, who has died, was a known close contact of a previous case. His death brings the cumulative total number of cases for Gulu to 395 cases with 150 deaths, according to the ministry of health.

However, the ministry of health says, no new confirmed cases have been reported in Masindi district, which was also hardest hit by the epidemic, since Dec 19. The cumulative total number of cases remains 27 cases and 19 deaths.

Although active case finding and follow up of contacts of suspected and confirmed cases are continuing in both districts, WHO says it recommends no special restrictions on travel or trade to or from Uganda.

Scientists first became aware of the potential of ebola to destroy whole communities in the mid 1970s, when severe outbreaks in Sudan and the former Zaire, now the DRC, killed a total of about 440 people.

The virus, which is passed through fluid contacts, attacks the liver, kidneys, spleen and reproductive organs, and very often, flu-like symptoms such as a sore throat, headache and high temperature are the first sign of infection.

The victim, who starts to experience the symptoms within a fortnight, bleed from all openings on the body, leading quickly, in many cases, to death.

In 1995, ebola struck Kikwit, in western DRC, killing about 300 people.

Uganda’s experience with the virus was first reported on Oct 8 last year. The fear of the spread of the epidemic prompted Sudan and Kenya to threaten to close their borders with the East African country.

This fear was also echoed in Zambia where the district administrator in charge of Kaputa, Emmanuel Chileshe, last month ordered the 1,000 Congolese soldiers, who fled the conflict in their country, out of this remote border town of about 3,000 people.

Chileshe was quoted by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) as saying that: “These people from Congo carry different kinds of diseases — if we catch them, we won’t know how to cure them”.

He didn’t specify which disease, but the outbreak of ebola in Uganda has been attributed to contact with soldiers from the DRC where the war there has sucked in combatants from several African countries.

The war, which erupted in August 1998, has Uganda and Rwanda backing rebels seeking to overthrow the government of President Laurent-Desire Kabila. Kabila is supported by troops from Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe.