World Health Declares Ebola Outbreak a Global Level 3 Emergency

World Health Declares Ebola Outbreak in the Congo a Global Level 3 Emergency which is the highest level of health emergency. There are thousands of cases and ineffective containment of this contagious disease. Over 1676 people have died in this outbreak.

The World Health Organization (WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus) declared the Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

The Ebola outbreak has been classified as a level 3 emergency – the most serious – by WHO, triggering the highest level of mobilization from WHO. The UN has also recognized the seriousness of the emergency by activating the Humanitarian System-wide Scale-Up to support the Ebola response.

There are increased numbers of cases in Butembo and Mabalako; the epicenter has moved from Mabalako to Beni; and there is one imported case in Goma. Factors affecting the outbreak include population movement in highly densely populated areas; weak infection and prevention control practices in many health facilities; complex political environment; continued reluctance in the community; and the ongoing unstable security situation, which led to the recent murders of two community health workers. More than 70 entry points are being monitored and 75 million screenings have been conducted, with 22 cases detected in this manner. Beni is the main hotspot; cases in other areas are decreasing. There are 2512 confirmed or probable cases, including 136 health workers affected, with 40 deaths among them. Beni remains the epicenter of the outbreak, with 46% of the cases over the last 3 weeks. Mangina has 18% of the cases, and one new case in Goma came from Beni, with diagnosis confirmed within one hour of the patient’s arrival at a health facility.

Risk remains very high at national and regional levels but still low at global level. There is cause for concern linked to the recent case in Goma, as the city is a provincial capital with an airport with international flights.

26 thoughts on “World Health Declares Ebola Outbreak a Global Level 3 Emergency”

  1. So, first of all, the first line was sarcasm.
    Second of all, that is a frickin blog post.
    so, no, I don’t want to read it.
    And, no- it isn’t. You’d have to basically spit on someone to transmit it. It is not NEARLY as contagious as some viruses, nor as deadly as others.

  2. Sure go for it, if you’re here to enlighten folks you would have done the effort.
    Go and show a video where someone has suggested open borders explicitly without disease control as a decision factor, meaning that they’ve stated disease control is discrimination explicitly.

    Not that I’m a full-on open borders fan, but since folks are throwing that around here you might as well enlighten us with some examples.

  3. Ebola burns itself out because the speed at which the disease is spread is less than the speed at which people become so obviously, horribly sick (so that other people avoid them and they can’t go around spreading germs because they are too weak to move about).

    A change in either of these rates can move it to a danger zone.

    Eg. A partially successful vaccine might (perhaps, depends on a lot of factors) slow the progress of the disease enough to allow more spread. Fortunately this is the sort of thing that is tested for in the trials such as what is being run right now.

    A concern has been that moving into a major city might speed the transmission rate up to being in the danger zone from that direction. However we’ve had outbreaks in cities by now and that appears not to be the case.

    But there are dozens of other options that could occur. Such as a slight mutation to make the disease LESS immediately lethal, which would actually make it far worse because it would have more ability to spread.

    And finding some less affected vector such as if the germ can pass from humans to… lemurs (for example) and back. But doesn’t affect the lemurs that badly. Then there’ll be a huge infected population that keeps reinfecting the humans.

  4. Humans are part of nature, therefore anything humans do is just allowing nature to take its course.

  5. Well not as easy as New Zealand, or Australia, or North America, or South America…

    actually, Africa is fairly difficult compared to most continents.

  6. Do you really want us to start linking to people saying just that? Because it would be a waste of time but not difficult.

  7. Maybe washing fruits in a certain way is the answer. Very good article, thanks. As I said, it leaves more questions than answers. Begging for more research to clear understanding and finding pathways to disrupt the virus cycle.

  8. “We analyzed 4,022 blood samples of bats from >12 frugivorous and 27 insectivorous species; 2–37 (0.05%–0.92%) bats were seropositive for Zaire and 0–30 (0%–0.75%) bats for Sudan Ebola viruses”
    So less than 1% were even exposed enough to have antibodies. Fairly rare even among bats.
    West Africans just need to stop eating fruit bats.
    https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/24/12/18-0740_article

  9. If a virus like Ebola spread rapidly across the globe, I think people might have been pissed off of the WHO hadn’t done something. Now, I’m aware that won’t happen. But it COULD happen. It isn’t impossible. How DO you get a handle on somesomet like that? Because, I thought Ebola flares up but burns itself out too fast to be a huge pandemic. What concerns me is, what of that iant true? I’m not a virologist, I’ve no clue what it’s capable of in terms of mutation. I do know that if we had a major global issue with Ebola, it would suck SOOO hard.

  10. A good analysis of the Virus life cycle will bring out a good disruption point for sure. probably only some bats carry the virus and these populations can be identified and destroyed. I will not be surprised if the virus is spreading among bats as the frequency of the outbreaks is increasing and this is something to worry about as much as the outbreaks themselves.

  11. They can’t do much of course. Level 3 means nations need to take action; consider shutting down air travel and mandatory health inspections of travelers and/or three week quarantines.
    Also, it is effectively a war zone. Easy to control isn’t the word I would use based on the circumstances.

  12. Advertisements for the bats to vaccinate?Because the bats don’t die from it and are basically just carriers we’d have to rely on their feelings of empathy and their reading skills.

  13. And where did you get that I seem to know what to do? You probably be surprised how often things like that get overlooked. This virus does stay dormant somewhere though, and it could be found and controlled at that stage.

  14. Maybe that’s their point?
    “This is the max we can control. We canna go any faster cap’n! If you want us to protect you against anything really serious… then you’ll need to allocate us another $10B per year. Hint, hint.”

  15. You should get on that. You seem to know exactly what to do. Can’t imagine the “experts” overlooked that one. Those dufasses!

  16. If a few thousand cases of a relatively easy to control virus like Ebola in the backwoods of Africa qualifies as the most serious level of global Health emergency, then what is WHO going to do when a truly global threat emerges? Think Ebola like virus but spread like measles or the flu.

  17. The virus probably moves to humans again and again from bats. We should have found by now the measures that can be taken to prevent that from happening

  18. Rampant immigration and diversity is only a good thing.

    While Ebola couldn’t really gain traction in the current state of our healthcare system/s[quite good], if it were to be overwhelmed, you’d have a problem.

    Right now, we already have things coming across that are MUCH worse, like TB.

  19. Nothing to worry about, open the gates and let everyone in.
    What is a little case of the cold or ebola?

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