The Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on 01 August 2018 declared a new outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in two Provinces: North Kivu and Ituri. In responding to this outbreak, the African Union mission Support to the Ebola outbreak in DRC (ASEDCO) conducted the pre-deployment orientation and preparations training of the second cohort of volunteer Experts composed of Public health officers, Communication Officers, Logistician, Laboratory Technician/Scientists, Anthropologist and Medical Doctor officers to be deploy in Beni, North Kivu to support the Government-led response to the Ebola outbreak.
The African Union Commission, through the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), is taking appropriate measures to support efforts made by the Government including monitoring of the situation through its Emergency Operation Centre and coordinating with the Ministry of Health of the DRC and the World Health Organization (WHO). Following the declaration of the outbreak by the Minister of Health, the ASEDCO Mission mobilized and re-located the Africa CDC Emergency Response Team from Mbandaka to Beni (first cohort of volunteer Experts) and supported laboratory diagnostic capacity through provision of 6 GeneXpert machines, 3000 cartridges and laboratory supplies for testing of EVD.
The Africa CDC mandate in this mission is to support the efforts of the Government of the DRC in the containment and control of the EVD outbreak within the affected locality. It is also to prevent further spread of the disease. Based on the need on the ground, African Union recruited and conducted on this day the pre-deployment orientation and preparations training for the second cohort of volunteer Experts in Kinshasa and will deploy them early next week to continue working on surveillance activities, contact tracing, community communication, laboratory and Infection Prevention Control (IPC) tasks.
The African Union will continue to support the efforts of the DRC Government during this outbreak as well as neighboring countries. Africa CDC recognizes the need to support the leadership role of the Government of DRC to establish a comprehensive and well-coordinated response strategy. As such, Africa CDC will continue to work alongside other partners to control this outbreak and mitigate the impact on the health and economic security of the African Continent.
Current situation: Since the outbreak was declared on 01 August 2018, a total of 116 cases have been reported (84 laboratory confirmed cases and 30 probable cases). A total of 75 deaths have been reported by the Ministry of Health DR Congo as of 30 August 2018. Contact tracing is going on well with 2339 out 2444 (95.7%) of registered contacts being followed. Vaccination is currently being done and targeting front line health workers, primary contacts of cases, and contacts of contacts. As of 30 August, a total of 4851 individuals had been vaccinated. Screening at the ports of entry is being done and 35 out of the 36 (97%) covered points of entry reported that 105,401 travellers were screened.
