Kinshasa (AFP)

The Democratic Republic of Congo officially declared on Wednesday the end of the 11th Ebola epidemic in its history, marked by the concomitant health emergencies, the use of vaccines and eternal suspicions of corruption denounced this time by donor countries .

"On this Wednesday November 18, 2020, I am happy to solemnly declare the end of the 11th epidemic of the Ebola virus disease in the province of Equateur (north-west)", declared the Minister of Health, Eteni Longondo , in front of the press at the end of the usual health deadline (42 days after the last patient was definitively tested negative).

This is little compared to the previous epidemic of hemorrhagic fever in eastern DRC which was officially still ongoing on June 1, with more than 2,200 deaths between August 2018 and the end of June 2020, the second heaviest toll in the history of the disease since the appearance of the virus in 1976.

On June 1, the DRC was still living under the restrictive measures that the Head of State had taken in the face of the first cases of coronavirus in the country, including the closure of the country's borders lifted on August 15.

As in the 10th epidemic in the East, vaccination has been widely used on "more than 40,580 people," the WHO said.

The vaccine used was rVSV-ZEBOV-GP from the American laboratory Merck.

"The current epidemic has occurred in a particular context", summarized the minister.

It has also affected "river and lake health zones" that are difficult to access, with risks of spread to neighboring Congo-Brazzaville and to other provinces.

- Risk of resurgence-

"The high risk of resurgence remains permanent and must serve as a warning signal for the vigilance system to be strengthened", according to the minister.

The International Federation of the Red Cross recalled in a statement that the DRC was still facing "considerable humanitarian challenges".

During this new epidemic, the DRC and its partners pledged to learn the lessons of the "great" epidemic in the east of the country, starting by fighting against the misappropriation of public aid.

"We have found that the Congolese people are fed up with corrupt practices," wrote the ambassadors of the United States, Canada and Great Britain in mid-September after a field mission with the Congolese epidemiologist Jean-Jacques Muyembe.

"People see this kind of epidemic as an opportunity to get rich, whether for the private sector or through the various channels of the State", detailed the Canadian ambassador, Nicolas Simard.

"In Mbandaka (capital of Ecuador), there were more than 4,000 staff members assigned to the response against Ebola while there were only 120 cases. Why 4,000 people?", He asked. .

"We absolutely must find the means to better manage public funds, to avoid all kinds of corruption problems that we have observed."

© 2020 AFP