When I hear the word ‘Ebola,’ I immediately think back to the year 2014 when the disease spread like wildfire throughout West Africa. I remember news spreading about the outbreak and everyone being scared of the disease being brought to the United States, but since then, I hadn’t really heard anything about it. Recently, however, there has been a huge Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. While the tenth case of Ebola in 40 years was declared in August of 2018, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres, an independent medical humanitarian organization, the numbers continued to rise. This is considered the country’s largest-ever Ebola outbreak, and the second-largest Ebola epidemic recorded.
Light At The End Of The Tunnel?
During the first eight months of the outbreak more than 1,000 cases were recorded in the affected region, but the number doubled within three more months. Between early June and beginning of August, the number of cases reported per week averaged between 75-100 cases a week, but the rate slowly declined. At the beginning of this year [2020], the number of cases reported weekly declined dramatically, but according to the Washington Post, just two days before the World Health Organization was going to announce the end of the Ebola outbreak, a new case emerged. Just as people were beginning to feel relieved that this would all be over, they are now having to continue to worry about contracting the disease for the next few months. The only somewhat good thing about this happening at the time it did is that the country was still considered to be in “response mode.”
While the World Health Organization has been working closely with Congo to help eradicate the disease, the reemergence of a case is devastating especially to those who are under threat from the coronavirus outbreak. As Kate Monger, the person who oversees the regional response for the International Rescue Committee, said “This is now a triple emergency: vulnerable populations facing ongoing humanitarian crises, the spread of covid-19 and now again potentially re-emerging Ebola crisis.” It is known that the virus can remain present for over a year in semen of patients who survive the disease, so the new case could have risen by being passed on from a survivor. This raises concerns as the disease could have been transmitted to hundreds of other people without them knowing. The World Health Organization has said they will continue testing about 200 people a day, dead and alive, to find carriers of the virus.
Even though this disease doesn’t pose a threat to me personally, it is still devastating to hear news like this. I just hope and pray that this will all be over soon for those affected by this every day.
V's Microbionic 