Congo: UNICEF Provides Update on Ebola Response

By Development Diaries
February 8, 2021

United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) says it is ready to send medical equipment to North Kivu following the confirmation of a new Ebola case in Democratic Republic of Congo.

Health authorities in the country say the victim, a 42-year-old woman, wife of an Ebola survivor, went to the Biena health centre, 90km south-west of Butembo, on 01 February with symptoms of the disease.

She was tested and then transferred to the Matanda Hospital in Butembo where she died on 03 February.

‘The expertise and capacity of local health teams has been critical in detecting this new Ebola case and paving the way for a timely response’, World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, said in a statement.

‘WHO is providing support to local and national health authorities to quickly trace, identify and treat the contacts to curtail the further spread of the virus’.

More than 70 contacts, according to WHO, have been identified.

UNICEF, in another statement, said it was assisting efforts to track and trace all those who came into contact with the victim, and is working closely with local health authorities to support community mobilisation, control infection mechanisms and decontamination activities.

‘UNICEF is currently organising shipping medical equipment and supplies that will be brought to the affected area from Mbandaka, in Equateur province’, the UNICEF statement read.

This is the 12th outbreak in DRC 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.

In August 2018, North Kivu, Ituri and South Kivu provinces were hit by the world’s second deadliest outbreak of Ebola.

The epidemic lasted 23 months and killed 2,287 people, infected 3,470, with children comprising about 28 percent of all cases.

That period, UNICEF supported 3,812 health centres with essential water, hygiene and sanitation services,

The UN agency also provided more than 16,000 children with psychosocial support, and helped reach more than 37 million people across the country with life-saving information about the disease.

Source: UNICEF