The Democratic Republic of the Congo has seen a resurgence of Ebola, a deadly disease that has appeared behind the recent death of a woman in Butembo, a city in the North Kivu province, which has only been in recent months. declared an end to an Ebola outbreak.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Sunday that a woman had died a few days after she showed signs of Ebola, a virus that causes severe bleeding and organ failure. Blood samples confirm her diagnosis, though the woman died before she ever heard she was infected.
It was not immediately clear how the woman, who was married to a survivor of Ebola, contracted the virus, as the case came after Eastern Congo was an official end to the second deadliest Ebola outbreak in history. However, in a news release on the woman’s death, WHO officials noted that “it is not uncommon for sporadic cases to occur after a major outbreak.”
More than 70 of the woman’s close contacts have since been identified, although no additional cases have been reported.
CONGO ANNOUNCES END OF 2ND DEADLY EBOLA BREAK EVER
“It is possible that there will be further cases because the woman had contact with many people after she became symptomatic,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a Monday news conference.
“[Ebola] vaccines are being sent to the area and we hope vaccination will start as soon as possible, “Tedros added. WHO sent a quick response team to provide the necessary support. “
This is the twelfth outbreak of conflict in the Congo since the virus was first discovered in the country in 1976, and it comes less than three months after an outbreak in the western province of Equateur officially ended in November. The 2018 outbreak in eastern Congo was the second deadliest in the world, killing 2,299 people before ending in June. This outbreak lasted nearly two years and has been fought amid unprecedented challenges, including entrenched conflict between armed groups, the world’s largest measles epidemic and the spread of COVID-19.
Health officials are concerned that a new Ebola outbreak could adversely affect the country’s fragile health system, especially as COVID-19 revives.
“While there is hope that this early identification of an infection can help prevent this outbreak quickly, the outbreaks of Ebola and COVID-19 have stretched the Congo’s health systems to the extreme, and this could put an already inflamed strain much greater. farm system, ”said Jason Kindrachuk, an assistant professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at the Canadian University of Manitoba, and conducted research on survivors of the 2014-2016 West African Ebola outbreak, the deadliest ever .
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The Ebola virus is highly contagious and can be contracted by body fluids such as vomit, blood or semen. According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, the virus can live for more than three years in the semen of male survivors, and according to health experts, as outbreaks occur more frequently, it is important to understand more about how they are contracted. .
The Associated Press contributed to this report.