“One of the most fatal viruses” is coming back!

“One of the most fatal viruses” is coming back!

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“One of the most fatal viruses” is coming back! The country’s first medical staff diagnosed.

Recently, Ebola cases occurred again in the Congo (DRC) in southeastern Guinea and central Africa, and the WHO urgently allocated vaccines.

After five years, Ebola makes a comeback

According to recent news from Agence France-Presse, the Ebola epidemic has reoccurred in southeastern Guinea recently. The country’s health department has confirmed 7 cases of infection, including 3 deaths. It has been about five years since the last Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The WHO stated that it will quickly travel to Guinea for assistance and deliver the vaccine to Conakry, the capital of Guinea as soon as possible.

Sakoba Keita, director of the National Health and Security Administration of Guinea, told the media on the 14th local time that the country is in an Ebola “epidemic”. The 7 confirmed cases that have been reported include 4 men and 3 women.

A funeral accelerates the spread of the virus

The first confirmed case of the Ebola epidemic in Guinea was a nurse. She unfortunately died of the virus at the end of January this year and was buried on February 1. A few days later, many people who attended her funeral developed symptoms such as diarrhea, vomiting, and fever. On the 14th, a laboratory in the capital Conakry tested the virus samples and confirmed that the patient was infected with the Ebola virus.

According to reports, people diagnosed with Ebola virus have been quarantined. Investigators are tracing the contact trajectory of all those who attended the funeral (deceased nurse). Experts hope to find out the source of the Ebola epidemic.

The Minister of Health of Guinea Remy Rama told the media that he is “worried” about the current situation, but Guinea already has experience in responding to the Ebola epidemic, and the advent of the Ebola vaccine will help curb the spread of the virus.

Why does the re-emergence of Ebola in Guinea cause concern?

Ebola virus is a very rare virus. After it was discovered in southern Sudan and the Ebola region of the Congo (Kinshasa) in 1976, it attracted widespread attention and attention from the medical community. And got the name.

Ebola virus is a severe infectious disease virus that can cause Ebola hemorrhagic fever in humans and other primates. Symptoms of infected persons include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, changes in skin color, body aches, internal bleeding, external bleeding, Fever etc. The mortality rate ranges from 50% to 90%. The main causes of death are stroke, myocardial infarction, hypovolemic shock, or multiple organ failure.

Ebola virus has a biosafety level of 4 (AIDS is level 3, SARS is level 3, the larger the level, the stricter the protection).

The World Health Organization announced on December 23, 2016 that the vaccine developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada can effectively protect against Ebola virus.

The recurrence of Ebola cases in Guinea is worrying because the existing cases are concentrated in the Nzerekore region in southeastern Guinea. In December 2013, the Ebola epidemic broke out from this area, and then quickly spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Mali, and the United States. Since the outbreak in West Africa in 2013 and the WHO officially declared the end of the epidemic in 2016, Ebola has claimed more than 11,300 lives.

Ebola never really left Africa, a medical worker diagnosed

In addition to Guinea, Ebola cases have also appeared in the Congo (DRC) in central Africa.

The Congolese (DRC) health department recently announced that a medical worker was found to be infected with Ebola virus in the eastern part of the country. This is the fourth case of Ebola infection reported in the country since the beginning of this month, and it is also the first case of infection by a medical staff.

The Ministry of Health of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has not yet determined whether the current sporadic cases constitute a new round of Ebola epidemic. Serum samples of infected persons are being tested to determine whether the virus strain is related to the previous round of the epidemic. According to the health department, there are nearly 10,000 doses of Ebola vaccine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which have been arranged to be delivered to Butembo, North Kivu Province in the east.

The Ministry of Health of the Democratic Republic of the Congo announced as early as February 7 that a woman in Butembo developed Ebola-related symptoms on the 1st of this month and died on the 3rd. Her blood sample tested positive for the Ebola virus. Her husband had been infected with the Ebola virus and later recovered. Local authorities tracked about 200 close contacts of the case, and successively reported the second and third confirmed cases of infection.

Congo (DRC) declared the end of the Ebola epidemic in the northeast of the country in June 2020, and a new round of the epidemic broke out in the northwest province of the country at the beginning of the month. In November 2020, Congo (DRC) announced the end of the 11th Ebola epidemic in the country. During the epidemic, a total of 130 confirmed cases were reported, of which 55 were dead and 75 were cured.

(source:internet, reference only)

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