The Ebola virus has not said its last word in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Health authorities have declared a new epidemic in the northwest of the country, after the discovery of several cases, including deaths, in the province of Equateur. This region was already affected by the virus between May and July 2018. It is the eleventh Ebola epidemic in the DRC since the discovery of the virus in this country (then called Zaire) in 1976. It comes on top of the tenth still ongoing in the east of the country which has already left more than 2,280 dead since its appearance in August 2018. In April 2020, the Congolese authorities and the World Health Organization (WHO) were preparing to declare the end of the epidemic in the DRC, before the disease resurfaces in the city of Beni.

For several years, the DRC has been regularly struck by the resurgence of the Ebola virus on its territory. A virus that originates in animals, in a country that is home to most of the equatorial rain forest in Africa. "The main factor is the reservoir. The reservoir that are wild animals, explains Professor Yap Boum II, epidemiologist and director of Epicenter Africa. We think of the bats, we think of the chimpanzees that are present in the And the populations that we called the pygmies that live in these forests in contact with these reservoirs. The increasingly important contact means that from time to time, there is a resurgence of this virus and these contaminations. "

Seasonality and socio-economic factors

Other factors such as seasonality may explain the recurrence of this disease in the DRC. "There may also be a socio-economic aspect that causes populations to be pushed back to their limits, due to difficulties, civil wars, inter-tribal or inter-tribal wars, which can push certain populations to be more in contact with these reservoirs ", continues the professor. 

Between humans, the virus is transmitted quickly by direct contact with blood or body fluids. Ebola has a high average case fatality rate, around 50%. To combat the spread of the virus in the DRC, a vaccine is particularly used. It is called rVSV-ZEBOV and was proven during the Ebola epidemic in Guinea in 2015. At the same time, treatment is also available to treat patients. 

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