In October 2014, health officials in protective clothing in Bomi County outside Monrovia, Liberia, in West Africa, are carrying bodies suspected of Ebola infection. Monrovia (Liberia) = AP Yonhap News
There is an infectious disease emergency in Africa. The Ebola virus, which has killed 10,000 people in three years since 2013, shows signs of a recurrence. It is even worse after the new coronavirus infection (Corona 19), which is a global pandemic.
According to AFP news agency on the 14th (local time), Sakoba Keita, head of the West African Guinea State Health and Safety Administration, officially declared the Ebola outbreak in his country. He said immediately after the emergency meeting that day, “earlier this morning, the laboratory confirmed the presence of the Ebola virus.” The epidemic of Ebola in West Africa has been five years since 2013-2016.
The previous day, the Guinea Ministry of Health said that four people died of suspicion of Ebola infection. In the southeastern Nzerekore, a nurse died of illness at the end of last month and was buried on the 1st of this month.Of those who went to the nurse’s funeral, eight of them showed signs of Ebola infection, including diarrhea, vomiting, and bleeding. Of these eight, three were killed and four were hospitalized, the authorities added.
It’s not just Guinea. Eugene Eun-Jan-joo, Minister of Health of the Ministry of Health of the Democratic Congo in Central Africa, said that the fourth Ebola patient was confirmed this month in northern Kivu Province. The death toll on the 7th was followed by four new cases a week.
Earlier, in West Africa, at the end of 2013, the Ebola virus outbreak centered in the capitals of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, killing 11,300 people in three years until 2016. According to a non-governmental international organization, the World Association for Vaccine Immunization (GAVI, Gabi), the spread of Ebola at the time accelerated vaccine development, and there are currently 500,000 doses of vaccine in stock.
In the case of Democratic Congo, there have been 11 outbreaks since the virus was first discovered near the Ebola River in 1976. The latest trend is last year. The World Health Organization (WHO) also declared a’International Public Health Emergency’ (PHEIC) against the Ebola outbreak in Democratic Congo last year. During the six-month emergency that ended last November, 130 people were infected and 55 of them died.
Ebola is a fatal infectious disease that causes short-term death of patients from high fever and internal organ bleeding accompanied by cold symptoms. Symptoms are similar to pandemic hemorrhagic fever, but the disease is more severe and the mortality rate is high. It is transmitted with only a small amount of body fluid.
Kwon Kyung-seong reporter [email protected]
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