Information about Ebola at the entrance to a women's lavatory at Goma International Airport, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, on September 30.
/ Europa Press
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has declared this Wednesday the official end of the Ebola outbreak that was declared on June 1 in the province of Ecuador and caused 130 cases and 55 deaths.
"It is with great joy that I solemnly declare the end of the eleventh Ebola epidemic," Health Minister Eteni Longondo told the press.
The existence of a vaccine that was quickly administered to more than 40,000 people and that it is a remote area of small dispersed towns, which slowed down the infections, and where, in addition, there were already previous outbreaks were key to its control in only five months.
With this official declaration, which comes 42 days after the last patient tested negative, the DRC is free of Ebola.
This outbreak had a mortality of 43%, significantly lower than the 67% that was reached in the previous one that affected the northeast of the Congo between 2018 and June 2020 and caused more than 2,200 deaths, the second worst in history after the epidemic that It hit West Africa in 2014-2016, which left more than 11,000 dead and spread to five countries in the region with infections in the United States and Europe.
Since then, progress in the fight against this disease has been significant.
"In the Ecuador outbreak, the vaccine could be used from the first moment and it is clear that it may have played an important role in reducing the spread of the virus," says Dr. Guyguy Manangama, coordinator of the response to this outbreak. of Ebola from Doctors without Borders (MSF).
The World Health Organization (WHO) ensures that 40,580 people were immunized, which involved a huge logistical effort.
"Overcoming one of the world's most dangerous pathogens in remote and hard-to-reach communities shows what is possible when science and solidarity come together," said the WHO Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, through a statement.
In order to maintain the cold chain and deliver the vaccine, developed by Merck, to dispersed villages without electricity, which were sometimes only accessible through waterways or tracks in very poor condition, special freezers were used that kept the temperature around 80 degrees below zero for periods of up to a week.
"This technology will be useful when a vaccine against COVID-19 is brought to Africa," added the WHO regional director.
On this occasion, the strategy was adopted of vaccinating all the people where there were cases and not only direct contacts, which was also possible thanks to a greater acceptance of the community.
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The first cases were registered in the Air Congo neighborhood of the city of Mbandaka and the outbreak spread slowly but reaching a wide area, affecting 13 of the 17 health areas in the province of Ecuador.
“From the beginning, we observed significantly lower levels of viral load and mortality than those we saw in the previous outbreak,” says Dr. Manangama, referring to the one that affected North Kivu, Ituri and South Kivu, “a possible explanation is that there is some kind of natural immunity among people in the Ecuador province, as this region has experienced Ebola outbreaks before;
the most recent just two years ago ”.
Another huge difference between the two epidemics is that if in the northeast of the Congo the challenge was to move in an environment punished by a long armed conflict, in Ecuador there is no war and the response to Ebola could focus on the challenge of mobility and access to the most isolated communities.
"It took place in a particular context," Minister Longondo explained this Wednesday from Kinshasa, "an area full of rivers and lakes."
In his opinion, we must remain vigilant.
"The high risk of resurgence is there and it should serve as an alarm signal so that the surveillance system is reinforced," he added.