Something quite disheartening is happening in DR Congo and we should all be worried since it bears strong message for public health experts and just about everyone of us. Ebola remains out of control.
On the first day of August in 2018, healthnews.africa reported the reemergence of Ebola virus disease in DR Congo, this happened less than 5 days after the country’s health ministry declared the end of an Ebola virus disease outbreak in the country which officially started May 8.
When the current outbreak got underway, the WHO, DR Congo’s health ministry and others were confident the outbreak would be put under control in no time since there were effective vaccine supplies and an experimental drug.
But according to WHO’s most recent update on the outbreak, an average of 5 new cases are recorded everyday – a development that was attributed to multi-faceted challenges.
For instance, public and private health centres with inadequate infection prevention and control (IPC) practices continue to be major source of amplification of the outbreak. Furthermore, health workers continue to be infected. 44 health workers (41 nurses and three doctors) have been infected to date, of which 59% (26) were female.
As of 4 December, 458 cases (410 confirmed and 48 probable), including 271 deaths, have been reported in 11 health zones in North Kivu Province and three health zones in Ituri Province.
Furthermore, WHO asserted that the risk of the outbreak spreading to other provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as to neighbouring countries, remains very high.
Important lessons learnt
The Ebola crisis in DR Congo is a shocking revelation of how issues that are not directly related to an outbreak can complicate matters and make it difficult for absolute control to be established over a potentially lethal condition.
In the same vein, it is providing a clearer picture of the potentially serious health crisis happening in areas affected by minimal or widespread violence since security challenges in Ebola-affected regions are undermining efforts aimed at controlling the disease.
“These incidents severely impact both civilians and frontline workers, forcing suspension of EVD response activities and increasing the risk that the virus will continue to spread. WHO continues to distinguish between the incidents of conflict between rebel and government forces, and pockets of community push-back on the response. A recent increase in the incidence of new cases is the result of the multitude of challenges faced by response teams. This also reflects improved active surveillance and reporting from the community,” WHO said in a statement two months ago.
The outbreak also showed the strong influence of religious beliefs on people’s reactions to a deadly disease.
Several media reports revealed people were fleeing the treatment centers based on their religious beliefs and faith in God thus creating another dilemma for public health experts – how do we deal with the issue of faith and who will tell people that their belief in God puts the health of the entire community and beyond at risk? And is it legal and productive to forcefully restrict movement of individuals infected with a deadly disease?
The more we know about why the Ebola outbreak in DR Congo persists, the scarier we should become about what could truly be happening in northern Nigeria and other places with below par healthcare systems that are currently being upset by unending battles with terrorism and insurgency groups.
While it is quite impressive to note that international health organizations are leaving no stone unturned in improving the clinical outcomes in the region, the fact that Nigeria’s primary health centers are not universally well equipped with protective materials to handle a seriously contagious disease such as Ebola is a major concern and the stakeholders are aware of this.
This is why public health experts would not argue that potent drugs and effective vaccines don’t matter much in combating Ebola virus disease and other deadly outbreaks in places where the health system is porous, ineffective, less equipped, overstretched and poorly funded.
The unending Ebola outbreak in DR Congo should compel African leaders to sit up and do what is necessary across the continent which is to revitalize primary healthcare systems and enable health facilities across board to be able to successfully protect healthcare workers from becoming patients themselves, and control the spread of outbreaks without heavily relying on WHO and its cohort of foreign donors.