WHO chief Ghebreyesus travels to Congo, the epicenter of the Ebola epidemic. The two Italian aid workers with suspected infection tested negative. The Ministry of Health reassures: “Very low risk in Italy”
They are results negative the tests carried out at the Sacco hospital in Milan on the two Italian aid workers who returned from Uganda, suffering from feverish symptoms which initially seemed to be attributable to the ebola virus.
In the meantime, however, The Ebola epidemic continues to afflict Uganda and the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congowith infections and deaths increasing almost daily.
Italian aid workers are negative
The story of the two Como aid workers who returned from Uganda had initially generated apprehension.
The two boys had in fact developed fever with the presence of vomiting and diarrhea, symptoms attributable to Ebola (and many other diseases). Given the country from which the two aid workers returned (Uganda), the health protocol was promptly activated.
The analyzes therefore excluded the Ebola virusinstead finding the presence of intestinal bacteria Shigellawhich causes the same symptoms as the much deadlier virus.
The health councilor of the Lombardy region, Guido Bertolasowanted to underline how “at the moment there are no elements of alarm for public health“. An assessment also shared by the Ministry of Health, according to which the risk in Italy remains “very low” and that there is no pandemic alarm.
The head of the WHO in Congo
However, the situation is very different in Central Africa. According to the head of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, “we are facing an “extremely serious and difficult” Ebola epidemic.
An epidemic that in this phase “it is spreading rapidly. So far in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been confirmed 101 cases with 10 deaths, but we know that the epidemic in the DRC is much more widespread: currently there are more 900 suspected cases and 220 suspected deaths“.
Also for this reason, the head of the WHO arrived today in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The visit has both a symbolic and operational value, as the general director intends evaluate directly in the field response measures and meet with local health authorities and partners involved in containing the outbreak.
In the meantime, the WHO raised the alert level last Friday, bringing it to “very high” for the DRC and “high” at the regional level, while keeping the risk low at the global level.
Attacks on hospitals and patients on the run
One of the most serious obstacles to containing the epidemic is the systematic violence against health facilities. In fact, at least three episodes of this type have occurred in the north-eastern province of Ituri, where the first cases of Ebola were reported.
Two of these attacks were concentrated on the same weekend against the same hospital, allowing more than twenty patients to escape isolation.
The first serious episode concerned the Rwampara health center, where a group of angry residents broke into the facility demanding the return of the bodies of their loved ones who died of Ebola (the virus is transmissible even from the dead).
The following night, in Mongbwalu, residents set fire to a tent set up by Doctors Without Borders for suspected and confirmed Ebola cases, as the flames spread, 18 people with suspected infection fled the facility and all trace of them has gone missing.
What is Ebola?
But how transmissible is this virus? Are we facing a possible pandemic? The risk is very lowbut first we need to specify what disease we are talking about.
Ebola is a serious bleeding disease that begins with symptoms such as fever, tiredness, muscle pain and sore throat, which then worsens with vomiting, diarrhea, impaired kidney and liver function and, more rarely, hemorrhages. Mortality is quite high, about half of Ebola patients die.
The variant currently circulating in the DRC is the Bundibugyo virusone of the rarest species. Discovered less than two decades ago in western Uganda, fruit bats are believed to be the likely natural reservoirs of the virus.
Human infection occurs through close contact with the blood or secretions of infected animals, such as bats or nonhuman primates, and it is then transmitted from person to person through direct contact with blood, secretions, organs or other body fluids of infected individualsor with contaminated surfaces.
A very different story therefore from Covid-19, which was also and above all transmitted through the respiratory route. It should also be specified that an infected person is contagious only after the appearance of symptoms.
It is not possible to contract Ebola simply by being near someone or passing them in a public spacea fact which alone should contribute to the low transmissibility of the virus, attacks on hospitals permitting.
