The deadly Ebola viral disease has surfaced in Africa, and health officials are distributing vaccines and other measures stop your to spread. As of Tuesday, there have been at least 11 cases and seven deaths in two countries, including Guinea, which had a massive outbreak in 2013 which ended up leaving 11,000 dead. Several other African countries are now on high alert.
In Guinea, at least seven cases were reported since the beginning of February, with three victims killed so far. It is the first outbreak in the region since the 2013-2016 epidemic that swept West Africa and, even briefly, reached countries outside Africa, including the USA. It was the largest and deadliest Ebola outbreak in recorded history, with nearly 30,000 cases and 11,000 reported deaths.
Elsewhere, the Democratic Republic of Congo, located in Central Africa, has reported four cases in the same period, with two deaths so far. The DRC has faced most Ebola outbreaks since the virus was first discovered in 1976, including an outbreak that lasted from 2018 to 2020 and left more than 2,000 dead (the second largest number of deaths never). It is not yet known whether the outbreaks in Guinea and the DRC are connected. But according to Reuters, DRC officials confirmed through genetic analysis, your current cluster can be traced back to the previous outbreak in 2018. Genetic analysis of the virus found in Guinea is still ongoing and is expected to provide answers soon.
On Monday, Guinea officially declared an Ebola epidemic, while the DRC did so on 7 February. The World Health Organization is also now alerted six countries bordering Guinea are looking for cases, including Liberia and Sierra Leone. ThosThe three countries were hardest hit during the 2013-2016 epidemic.
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A lot has changed since then, that is, the development of a highly effective vaccine by the Merck company, as well as antiviral drugs (the Merck vaccine was briefly implanted at the end of the 2014 outbreak but it was not widely used until 2018). But Africa, like many parts of the world, is still struggling with the covid-19 pandemic. WHO said on Tuesday that stockpiled supplies of vaccines and medicines were being shipped to Guinea and neighboring countries. The United Nations announced today that goes to distribute $ 15 million in emergency relief funds to help respond in both countries.
Ebola is a zoonotic disease, which means that the virus is found natively in wildlife (probably bats) and then it overflows to people. If the DRC cluster is connected to a previous outbreak, however, it may indicate that it was somehow initiated by a human survivor. In people, it is transmitted through close contact with an infected person’s body fluids, which can include sex. Some people are known to carry the virus months after surviving the ordeal, usually in parts of the body less monitored by the immune system, such as the eyes and sperm. At this point, it is not known how the outbreak started.
Symptoms Ebola include fever, headache, and muscle pain that can progress quickly to severe and fatal internal bleeding. The Ebola mortality rate can vary from 25% to 90%, although it is generally around 50%.