The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) faces a “very high” public health risk from Ebola after the disease was confirmed in one patient in a major city, the WHO said yesterday, raising its assessment from “high.”
The risk to countries in the region was increased to “high,” raised from “moderate,” but the global risk remained “low.”
The reassessment came after the first confirmed case in Mbandaka, a city of about 1.5 million. Previous reports of the disease had all been in remote areas where Ebola might spread more slowly.
“The confirmed case in Mbandaka, a large urban center located on major national and international river, road and domestic air routes increases the risk of spread within the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to neighboring countries,” the WHO said.
WHO Deputy Director-General for Emergency Preparedness and Response Peter Salama on Thursday had told reporters that the risk assessment was being reviewed.
“We’re certainly not trying to cause any panic in the national or international community,” Salama said.
“What we’re saying, though, is that urban Ebola is very different phenomenon to rural Ebola, because we know that people in urban areas can have far more contacts, so that means that urban Ebola can result in an exponential increase in cases in a way that rural Ebola struggles to do,” he said.
The WHO was later yesterday to convene an emergency committee of experts to advise on the international response to the outbreak and decide whether it constitutes a “public health emergency of international concern.”
The nightmare scenario is an outbreak in Kinshasa, a crowded city where millions live in unsanitary slums not connected to a sewer system.
There had been 21 suspected, 20 probable and three confirmed cases of Ebola from April 4 to Tuesday, a total of 44 cases, including 15 deaths, the WHO statement said.
The DR Congo yesterday confirmed 11 new cases of Ebola in the northwestern town of Bikoro.
The WHO is sending 7,540 doses of an experimental vaccine to try to stop the outbreak in its tracks, and 4,300 doses have already arrived in Kinshasa. It would be used to protect health workers and “rings” of contacts around each case.
The vaccine supplies would be enough to vaccinate 50 rings of 150 people, the WHO said.
As of Tuesday, 527 contacts had been identified and were being followed up and monitored, it said.
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