Goma (DR Congo) (AFP)
Health Ministers from ten Central African countries have worked to strengthen their collaboration in the fight against the Ebola epidemic that has left more than 2,170 dead in the Democratic Republic of Congo, it was reported Tuesday. Congolese authorities.
The Congolese Minister of Health and his counterparts from the nine neighboring countries of the DRC discussed Monday in Goma the possibility of "developing a framework for cross-border collaboration for an Ebola response to the Ebola epidemic", said Tuesday the Ministry of Health in a statement.
This mechanism aims to "ensure timely sharing of critical information for rapid response and control of this epidemic" as well as "strengthening cross-border health surveillance", notes one.
In total, 2,171 people have died of Ebola in the DRC since the outbreak of the epidemic on August 1, 2018. This is the tenth Ebola epidemic on Congolese soil since 1976. After evaluation, the WHO maintained Friday the epidemic in the DRC as a global health emergency.
Organized in partnership with WHO and the African Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC Africa), the meeting of health ministers brought together the DRC, Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia.
Among the DRC's neighbors, only Uganda has recorded four cases of Ebola on its territory.
Thousands of people cross the border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and its nine neighbors every day.
© 2019 AFP