Tag: DRC

Oregon health officials monitoring 4 people for Ebola

KGW Staff – March 25, 2021

PORTLAND, Ore. — The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) on Thursday announced it is monitoring four people for Ebola after those people recently returned from Guinea and Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), two West African countries in the midst of Ebola outbreaks.

OHA said there is low risk for people in Oregon. It did not say where the four individuals are located.

Local public health departments and OHA have been in touch with the four people, who arrived back in Oregon in early March. They are considered “persons under monitoring”, OHA said.

“We want to make sure these individuals have the support they need to monitor their health, stay in contact with public health officials and safely get help with medical services if it comes to that,” said Dr. Richard Leman with the OHA Public Health Division.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued Level 3 travel warnings for the affected regions in both Guinea and DRC. The CDC recommends people avoid nonessential travel there.

Since March 4, the CDC has required all airlines to supply contact information for all U.S.-bound travelers who have been in Guinea or Democratic Republic of the Congo in the last 21 days, which is the largest known incubation period for Ebola, OHA said. Those travelers are interviewed upon arriving in the U.S. to determine if they are symptomatic and to confirm their contact information. If they are symptomatic, they will be offered medical evaluation.

https://www.kgw.com

55 Million People Face Famine as COVID-Ravaged Economies Fail To Meet Funding Goals

Alan Macleod – October 14, 2020

More than 55 million people in seven countries are in desperate need of COVID-19-related famine relief. That is according to a new report from international charity Oxfam, entitled “Later will be too late.” The report details how 55.5 million people in seven countries — Yemen, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Somalia — are living in severe-to-extreme levels of food insecurity or even famine conditions, thanks largely to the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

In March, the United Nations called for $10.3 billion in emergency funding to deal with the worldwide humanitarian impact the pandemic was expected to bring. Unfortunately, it has received barely a quarter of what it has asked for from donors. Every sector, including gender-based violence (58 percent funded), protection (27 percent), health (27 percent), and water, sanitation and hygiene (17 percent) are chronically under-funded. But the worst underwritten parts of its coronavirus response plan are food security (11 percent) and nutrition (3 percent). Indeed, in 5 of the 7 countries noted, the UN has received nothing at all to deal with the crisis. Oxfam called the international community’s response “dangerously inadequate.”

“The Committee for World Food Security must raise the alarm at the UN that famine is imminent on its watch and not enough is yet being done to stop it. We need a fairer and more sustainable food system that supports small scale producers. Years of neglect mean that millions upon millions of people remain unnecessarily vulnerable to shocks like COVID, climate change and conflict,” said Oxfam’s International interim Executive Director, Chema Vera.

Official estimates suggest that around 1.1 million people have died from COVID-19 globally since its emergence in China late last year. While the United States has seen the most cases and deaths overall, it is now countries in the global south that are the most intense hotbeds of the virus, with Brazil, Mexico, and India right behind the U.S. There are currently over 800,000 active cases in India alone.

https://www.mintpressnews.com

DR Congo announces fresh Ebola outbreak in country’s northwest

Al Jazeera – June 1, 2020

Health officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have reported a fresh Ebola outbreak in the country’s northwest, just weeks before they hoped to declare the end of another Ebola epidemic in the country’s east.

The appearance of the deadly disease on the other side of the vast country comes as an added blow as the DRC attempts to also battle the coronavirus pandemic.

Health Minister Eteni Longondo said on Monday “four people have already died” from Ebola in a district of the northwestern city of Mbandaka.

“The National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB) has confirmed to me that samples from Mbandaka tested positive for Ebola,” Longondo told a news conference.

“We will send them the vaccine and medicine very quickly,” the minister said, adding that he planned to visit the site of the outbreak at the end of the week.

The capital of Equateur Province, Mbandaka is a transport hub on the Congo River with a population of more than a million.

Equateur Province was previously hit by an Ebola outbreak between May and July 2018, in which 33 people died and 21 recovered from the disease.

https://www.aljazeera.com