The third confirmed case of the new Ebola outbreak declared in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on April 23 died this Friday, the World Health Organization reported (OMS).
“On May 6, the patient in the most recent case of Ebola passed away,” the organization said on Twitter.
“The health workers are working (…) to identify any contact and will monitor their health status and (them) will offer vaccination,” the WHO said.
It was a 48-year-old man and was a “high-risk contact” of the first patient, a 31-year-old man who died on April 21 following persistent bleeding and presenting some symptoms of the disease, such as severe pain. headache and fever.
So far all the cases have been detected in Mbandaka, the capital of the northwestern province of Ecuador.
According to the latest data shared Thursday by the WHO, 444 contacts have been traced so far and 353 people have been vaccinated (including 253 contacts) with the experimental rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine (approved in 2019 in the United States and the European Union). .
Although the country’s preparedness to deal with the disease is better than in the past, the WHO warned last week of the risk of spread because the affected area is highly connected to the Congolese capital Kinshasa and neighboring countries.
The second case of this outbreak – the fourteenth in the DRC – was a 25-year-old woman, sister-in-law of the first deceased, who died on April 25, also in Mbandaka.
These are the first cases of Ebola registered in the DRC since the WHO announced on December 16, 2021 the end of the thirteenth outbreak of the disease in the country, which caused 11 cases and 6 deaths in the northeastern province of North Kivu. .
From 2018 to 2020, northeastern DRC – including South Kivu, North Kivu and Ituri provinces – experienced its worst Ebola outbreak, with at least 2,299 deaths, according to WHO figures.
Before, between 2014 and 2016, Ebola caused the death of some 11,300 people in West Africa -including Guinea-Conakry, Liberia and Sierra Leone-, in the worst epidemic of the disease in the world, although the WHO warned that these figures they can be conservative.
The disease, discovered in 1976 in the DRC – then called Zaire – is transmitted by direct contact with the blood and body fluids of infected people or animals.
This fever causes severe bleeding and can reach a mortality rate of 90%, while its first symptoms are sudden and high fever, severe weakness, and muscle, headache, and throat pain, as well as vomiting.
