Health experts rush to tackle Congo Ebola outbreak
Pastor Dale Morgan
Health experts rush to tackle Congo Ebola outbreak*
By Joe Bavier
Reuters
Wednesday, September 12, 2007; 12:41 PM
KINSHASA (Reuters) - Health workers launched an emergency operation on
Wednesday to fight an outbreak of deadly Ebola hemorrhagic fever in
southern Congo, airlifting supplies, setting up isolation tents and
disinfecting contaminated areas.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and medical NGOs such as Medecins
Sans Frontieres (MSF) joined local health authorities in a major
logistics operation to try to contain the outbreak in Kasai Occidental
province of Democratic Republic of Congo.
Congo's 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 more than 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 percent of cases and
is transmitted by contact with the 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 epicenter of the latest outbreak, and had flown three tons
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.
So too were "Ebola Kits" -- 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.
QUARANTINE
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 lack of good roads and
infrastructure, much of it damaged by years of neglect and a 1998-2003
war, magnified the problems of tackling the outbreak in the former
Belgian colony.
"It's a real logistical challenge," Zintzen said.
In addition to an MSF 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 presented high fever, headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, and in a
few cases external bleeding. Within two or three days, patients die from
dehydration.
Those infected were being isolated while their samples were being tested
to confirm Ebola. They were being treated with antibiotics and put on a
drip to combat dehydration.
The WHO said it was not clear whether all the deaths had been caused by
Ebola and the presence of other diseases such as Shigella dysentery,
which is borne by contaminated food or water, was also suspected.
No cases have been reported so far in east Congo, where heavy fighting
in recent weeks between government forces and rebels forced thousands of
civilians to flee their homes.
Kasai is east of Kikwit, the site of a major Ebola outbreak in the
former Zaire in 1995, which killed 250 among 315 people.
(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher)