Tanzania is being accused by the World Health Organization (WHO) of withholding information on suspected cases of Ebola in the country. According to the organization, there are probably several people suffering from the virus there. "Despite several requests, WHO has not received further details from the Tanzanian authorities on any of these cases," she said.
She learned already on 10 September by a 34-year-old female patient who had died two days earlier in Dar es Salaam. She was tested positive for the virus. In the past week, there has also been evidence that people around the patient are now being treated in the hospital with similar symptoms. Two other suspected cases were reported unofficially to the organization.
It is feared that the Ebola virus could spread from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to neighboring countries, including Tanzania. In the Congo, many people have died in an Ebola epidemic.
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Tanzanian authorities said in mid-September that there were no Ebola sufferers in the country. However, according to WHO, they rejected "additional confirmatory tests" in a World Health Organization center.
The WHO criticized that the lack of information impeded efforts to curb the spread of the deadly virus. Since the potentially ill patient had previously traveled a lot, "the risk at national level was considered very high". If the suspected cases were confirmed, according to the WHO, it would be the first official Ebola disease in Tanzania. The country is popular with tourists, they are an important source of income there.
East African countries are on alert for the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The virus has claimed more than 2,000 lives there since the beginning of the epidemic in August 2018. In Uganda, four people died. Between 2014 and 2016, more than 11,000 people died in the worst Ebola wave in history in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
According to the Foreign Office, in Tanzania all travelers from the Congo at airports and national borders are currently being checked by temperature scanners. In addition, it is assumed that there is a suspicion of measures such as quarantine, it is said. The potential illness described by WHO may have been overlooked in such controls.
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The Ebola virus was first registered in 1976 in the north of the Democratic Republic of Congo and is named after a river there. Those affected suffer from fever, muscle aches, diarrhea, as well as internal bleeding and eventually organ failure. According to WHO, the disease is fatal in 25 to 90 percent of cases, depending on the virus strain. The virus is transmitted through contact with body fluids. An effective remedy does not exist so far.
However, experimental therapies are already being used to raise hope. They are based on the administration of antibodies, in one agent, the antibodies of a survivor served as a model. When patients were treated with the remedy within days of infection, 89 percent survived. The other remedy, a cocktail of different antibodies, was even 94 percent. By comparison, around 70 percent of those infected die without the medication during the current outbreak.
Even with a vaccination is currently being experimented in the Congo. In tests with around 200,000 healthy vaccinees, the agent protected 97.5 percent from infection. However, the active substance is not approved yet.
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