The Ministry of Health of DR Congo announced Sunday, July 14 that a case of Ebola hemorrhagic fever was identified in Goma (one million inhabitants). It is the largest city affected since the beginning of the epidemic on August 1, 2018. The government calls to keep calm.
The patient arrived from Butembo
The patient is a man arrived Sunday morning by bus, with 18 other passengers and the driver, from Butembo, one of the main outbreaks of the disease in the province of North Kivu (east).
His journey began Friday after "his first symptoms appeared on July 9," said the ministry statement. "By 3:00 pm, the lab test results confirmed that he was Ebola positive."
"Due to the speed with which the patient has been identified, as well as the identification of all bus passengers from Butembo, the risk of spread in the rest of the city of Goma remains low," said the ministry. "The bus driver and the 18 other passengers have been identified and their vaccination will start on Monday, July 15, 2019."
A Christian pastor
The patient is presented as a pastor who made a short stay in Butembo, a town 200-300 km north of Goma, but separated from the provincial capital by very bad roads, under the threat of armed groups.
In Butembo, he was preaching in a Christian church where he would have touched the hands of the faithful "including the sick," according to the ministry statement.
"His first symptoms appeared on 9 July while he was still in Butembo, and he was followed by a home-based nurse until he left for Goma on 12 July," the ministry said. "Upon his arrival in Goma this Sunday morning, he went to a health center to continue his treatment [and the health care workers] immediately alerted the Ebola response teams, who transferred him to the treatment center. "
Upon arrival in Goma, the pastor who officiated in a church, called the alarm clock, would have borrowed a motorcycle to go to the home of a loved one, according to a source who prefers to remain anonymous.
Health workers had been vaccinated as early as December in Goma, while the epidemic hit the Beni-Butembo area further north.
"Since November 2018, the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO) have set up an Ebola preparedness and response system in the city of Goma, due to the large influx of travelers from affected by the epidemic, "said the ministry.
The current epidemic in eastern DRC is the second largest in the history of the disease after the one that killed nearly 11,000 people in West Africa (Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone) in 2013- 2014.
"There were 1,655 deaths (1,561 confirmed and 94 probable) and 694 people cured," reads in the daily bulletin of the Ministry of Health, dated Saturday.
And 160,239 people were vaccinated, adds the ministry.
With AFP