May 17, 2017

Ebola outbreak new litmus test for global preparedness to emerging threats

located:	Republic of the Congo
editor:	Bob Koigi

The recent outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo has rekindled somber memories of a pandemic that struck West African countries three years ago, infecting more than 28000 and killing over 11,300 people. It is an outbreak that jolted the world to action, as scenes of emaciated and pain struck patients visiting understaffed and ill equipped hospitals in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea were broadcast world over.

But it is the reaction by key world health bodies that sparked outrage and criticism and now call for a re think with the latest outbreak. When the pandemic struck Guinea in 2014, humanitarian organization Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) being at the front line of providing care for Ebola patients was the first to raise the red flag announcing that the epidemic had spiraled out of control and the organization needed further assistance to contain it. It took four months and more than 1800 deaths for institutions like the World Health Organization to declare the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern therefore calling on global coordinated response.

While certain discourses argue that the United Nations’ body has been selective in how it responds to outbreaks and pandemics depending on where they first strike, the lessons of 2014 have obviously offered the body vital lessons, seeing it has been quick in keeping its pulse on the recent DR Congo outbreak where at least three people have been confirmed dead. But it now calls for a re think of how the world handles emerging and traditional pandemics that have defied conventional medicine. With the world increasingly becoming one global village, disease transmissions have become a matter of when and not if with a case reported in a village in Africa, being spotted somewhere in South America within hours. The World Health Assembly, the decision making organ of WHO meets in Geneva on May 23 and the meet couldn’t have come at a better time. It is our hope that this recent Ebola flare up will form a key agenda of the forum if WHO is to prove to the world its level of preparedness and the firmness it intends to handle emerging global pandemics, if it is to save face.

But Congo’s management and coordinated response to Ebola, since it was discovered in the country in 1976 should also offer the world vital lessons on how to battle deadly contagions. The current outbreak is the eighth. But while West Africa was reporting 11,000 deaths in 2014, Congo had managed to tame the spread to 49. Congo has workers at all times on standby and on lookout for suspicious symptoms among locals in their areas which they then alert officials at the national level. Local communities and leaders are also frequently trained on safe burial procedures and how to work with health authorities especially because Ebola is most contagious in the hours following a death. While the country might not have enough resources to handle a pandemic of such epidemic proportions, its smooth coordination between local leaders, national authorities and the outside should be replicated if we are to address the most important aspect of fighting a pandemic; detection.