Ebola’s presence in the DRC has remained a constant threat following the major outbreak in 2014, when hundreds of people died from the deadly disease. Since the last crisis, health authorities in the country have been highly effective in setting up boundaries and promoting public health. As a result, the last few years saw Ebola relatively under control and mainly confined to the central African country. However, now Ebola is breaking borders and has been infecting unprecedented sections of the population.
What is Ebola?
Ebola – officially known as Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) – is one of the World’s most dangerous diseases, and was discovered in the DRC.
The disease was first observed in the Ebola river in the republic, and experts are still unsure exactly where it came from.
Ebola is an animal-borne virus which can quickly drift over to human circles and spread rapidly, with a 60 percent mortality rate.
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The animals which carry the virus are mainly bats, who can transmit it to other animals like apes, which then pass it over to humans due to close contact.
According to the Centre for Disease Control based in the US, symptoms of Ebola include:
– Fever
– Severe headache
– Muscle pain
– Weakness
– Fatigue
– Diarrhoea
– Vomiting
– Abdominal (stomach) pain
– Unexplained haemorrhage (bleeding or bruising)
Those who are able to recover from the virus are likely to experience tiredness and aches a while after recovery, and the virus can exist in trace amounts in the body for up to a decade later.
Why is this year’s outbreak worse than before?
The DRC regularly faces outbreaks of the Ebola virus, but this year’s has proven to be much more difficult to tackle.
North Kivu and Ituri provinces in the area have been the primary areas of infection this year, with a total of 373 suspected cases.
So far, 347 of these cases have been confirmed, and 217 people have been killed by the virus.
Transmission has now been noted among newborns as well, with seven confirmed cases, thought to be transmitted through their mother’s bodily fluids such as breastmilk.
The demography in North Kivu and Ituri is primarily responsible for the quick spread and difficult containment of the disease.
Both areas are highly populated, and people living within them are mobile, often journeying to other parts of the country.
North Kivu especially is the staging ground for political upheaval at the moment, with armed groups such as the Allied Defence Forces (ADF) causing refugees to file in and out of the area.
Clashes are preventing health officials from doing vital work, and traditional healers are taking precedence over vaccination efforts.
Jessica Ilunga, DRC Ministry of Public Health communications officer, told Al Jazeera: “The predominance of traditional healers, who are more trusted by the population than modern medicine, has also led to an important number of nosocomial (hospital) transmissions of the virus.”
These factors have made it difficult for health officials to control the outbreak and prevent it, with many people unwilling to accept vaccination.