DRC - Ebola virus is the Zaire strain, in a lineage most closely related to a virus from the 1995 Ebola outbreak in Kikwit, DRC

[Ronan Kelly]

I collected several posts from 3 different thread to create this thread.

There is a radio broadcast at the link above from Gert. It seems to suggest one positive for Ebola Sudan, one for a cross Sudan/Zaire? My French is not good enough for certainty - can a Francophone listen to and translate the broadcast??

http://radiookapi.net/actualite/2014/08/24/rdc-le-gouvernement-declare-lepidemie-debola-djera/

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: Ebola outbreak: DR Congo confirms first cases

Re: Ebola outbreak: DR Congo confirms first cases

There is a radio broadcast at the link above from Gert. It seems to suggest one positive for Ebola Sudan, one for a cross Sudan/Zaire?
http://radiookapi.net/actualite/2014/08/24/rdc-le-gouvernement-declare-lepidemie-debola-djera/

Yes, that is exactly what I heard.

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: Ebola outbreak: DR Congo confirms first cases

Re: Ebola outbreak: DR Congo confirms first cases

Yes, that is exactly what I heard.

Yes, according to this audio, 2 samples are positive for Ebola, one sample positive for the Sudan strain and the other positive for a cross Sudan/Zaire. Further analyses will be done at the International Center for Medical Research of Franceville in Gabon to determine the source in the next hours.

 

[Treyfish]

Re: Ebola outbreak: DR Congo confirms first cases

Re: Ebola outbreak: DR Congo confirms first cases

..Below, the entire communication from the Minister of Health, Dr Felix Kabange Numbi, as he delivered yesterday on RTNC, while giving full details of the reported presence of the Ebola virus to Djera, Ecuador... Dear compatriots,
Since December 2013, the outbreak of the Ebola virus disease, prevalent in West Africa, including Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. In those days, more than 2,000 cases were reported, of which 1,145 deaths. Faced with this public health emergency of international concern, the Democratic Republic of Congo has raised the alert threshold at entry points and the level of supervision of all hemorrhagic fevers within the country.
Before the occurrence of haemorrhagic fever of undetermined origin, served in the Health Zone Boende in the Province of Ecuador, the President of the Republic, His Excellency Joseph Kabila, head of state, instructed the Government to hold two crisis meetings on Tuesday 19 and Friday, August 22, 2014, chaired by the Prime Minister.
It was decided during the first meeting, sent a delegation led by the Minister of Public Health in the territory of Boende.


The facts on ground shows that the disease has killed 13 people, including five health workers, patients were 11 people in isolation and over 80 contacts were identified and monitored by a specialized team.
The Government of the Republic presents its condolences to all the bereaved families.


After analyzing eight samples field, the National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB) has confirmed that two samples were positive to Ebola. A sample is positive for Sudan strain and one positive sample in a cross strain, Sudan Zaire. Of aligots were sent to the International Center for Medical Research in Franceville, Gabon, for the determination of strain in the coming hours.
'So I said to this day, the outbreak of the Ebola virus disease in Sector Djera, Boende territory, district Tshuapa, Equator Province in the DRC'.
This epidemic has no connection with that outbreak in West Africa and is the ^7th epidemic in the DRC since the Great Yamboko occurred in 1976 in the province of Ecuador.
The experience gained from previous epidemics 6 Ebola will be put to use to contain the disease.
'I recall that the epidemic is confined to the area Djera, located about 600 kilometers from Mbandaka, Chief town of the Province of Ecuador, is over 1,200 km from the city-province of Kinshasa DRC capital. Actions are already underway on land with the contribution of local authorities, health personnel and the Government of the Republic.

The Government of the Republic invites the public to remain calm and respect the protection measures including regular hand washing with soap after critical moments.

Before the disease Ebola in the area Djera, the Government of the Republic met this afternoon of Sunday, August 24, 2014, in crisis meeting with the Prime Minister, on the instruction of the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
And the Government of the DRC announced the following measures:

1. Quarantining sector Djera. Sorting and filtering will be from Lomela River, located 16 kilometers from Boende and security services will be involved;
2. The establishment of a processing center Lokolia;
3. Installation of the International Technical Coordination Committee and Scientific acronym CICTS to Lokolia. A camp will be built for this purpose, for multiple interventions;
4. The installation of a mobile laboratory Lokolia, the epicenter of the epidemic for the laboratory diagnosis in real time;
5. The deployment of experts to Lokolia and its surroundings, including all skills. It should be noted that health workers who managed the previous outbreaks in DRC will be involved and deployed in the field.
6. Staffing all ports and airports in Ecuador Laser thermometer;
7. The prohibition of hunting on the entire range of the district Tshuapa;
8. Strengthening all the measures already announced to date, including the equipping of protection to all medical personnel, active case finding and monitoring of all cases contacted, secure confirmed cases and funerals unexplained deaths in the community, awareness, isolation of all cases, disinfecting homes of all confirmed cases or deaths in the community, staffing of all essential drug industry structures of Djera and free care for the entire period of the epidemic, staff motivation and the motivation of the response team, the psychosocial care of all those infected and affected people, building capacity of local service providers throughout the territory of Boende.

'The leadership of the response to the outbreak of the Ebola virus disease is provided by the President of the Republic, Head of State, His Excellency Joseph Kabila and Prime Minister, His Excellency Matata Ponyo Mapon hold regular crisis meetings with all concerned Ministries'.
The Government of the DRC remains available to all support of National as well as international community. An Information Point will be open, from this Monday, August 25, 2014, the Ministry of Public Health to regularly inform the public and the international community. A hotline will be announced in the coming hours to answer all the questions here.
I remember that there is no Ebola in the City-Province of Kinshasa, capital of DRC, much less Mbandaka, Chief town of the Province of Ecuador, and the epidemic is restricted to date , sector Djera in Boende territory and that all measures have been taken by the Government to contain this epidemic in the Territory Boende.
Thank you:tiphat:https://translate.googleusercontent...=SANTE&usg=ALkJrhgmBkTbkeSvIlZIgP6KijYHyOcG6Q

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: Ebola outbreak: DR Congo confirms first cases

Re: Ebola outbreak: DR Congo confirms first cases

Translation Google

DRC | Ebola | Health & Medicine
Posted on 27-08-2014 ? Amended 27-08-2014 at 17:18

Ebola Zaire strain confirmed in DRC

by RFI

Six of the eight samples taken from patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo were positive to Ebola. Since August 11, 13 people died in a remote province of Ecuador about 800 miles northeast of Kinshasa sector. Detailed examinations have confirmed that the strain of the disease in the DRC is the so-called "Zaire". Eric Leroy, Director of the International Centre for Medical Research, the laboratory in Franceville in Gabon who made the diagnosis, interviewed by RFI.

RFI: Your laboratory analyzed the samples taken from patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The results are determined, what are they?

Eric Leroy: Our laboratory was required as a WHO Collaborating Centre for diagnosing viral haemorrhagic fever and Ebola virus and therefore actually we confirmed the results obtained by Kinshasa and thus we confirmed the positive results in Ebola Zaire virus. For now we are at the stage of diagnosis, which is just to identify whether or not the Ebola within biological samples and to identify the virus species.

You know that the Ebola virus is divided into five species: Sudan, Zaire, Cote d'Ivoire, Bundibugyo and Reston and our systems precisely allow us to differentiate the species. After the characterization of the strain itself, it is necessary to wait for the result of sequencing that is to say, the characterization of the entire genome sequence of the virus. There the test has shown us that it was Zaire and now to have a finer strain characterization, it is necessary to wait for the sequencing that we will get, hopefully, by the weekend.

How many specimens exactly have you received and where do they come from?

We received eight biological samples that come from IRMB (National Institute for Biomedical Research in Kinshasa) who conducted the initial analyzes. The eight biological samples from eight patients obviously of the affected area and on the eight biological samples, we confirmed the presence of Ebola virus in six of them. The other two, it can be entirely another disease because you have to know that Ebola expresses symptoms that are quite common contrary to what people think and can be confused with many other diseases as a uncomplicated malaria, gastroenteritis and typhoid then. Finally, there are many other diseases resembling the infection with Ebola virus.

Can we say that this strain is different from the strain that currently grips West Africa?

As long as one does not have the result of sequencing, we can not be 100% positive, but given the context of the emergence of these cases, it is still very high probability that it is a different strain. It is an outbreak that appeared in a small village so the movement of people between the small village of the DRC and Guinea is very, very unlikely. If the cases occurred in a big city, then we could actually raise the possibility of transmission of the strain. And there it is in a village, so it evokes a new appearance, a new emergence of the virus from an animal strain and therefore a strain different from Guinea.

Exactly how is it that the virus appears like that from time to time?

The virus can not live alone. He lives like a parasite, inevitably within a living organism, it is called the reservoir. And numerous viruses, if not most, live inside a living organism that is an animal, so it is called the "animal reservoir" so the natural host of the virus . And there it lives permanently, it does not appear, it does not disappear, it is always present. "The animal reservoir" is the carrier at a certain percentage. These animals naturally harbor the virus without getting sick.

And then with regard to the Ebola virus, they are species of bat. So the virus is still there in populations of bats. By cons, it is not always there in the human species. The so-called outbreak of an epidemic or outbreak of a disease is when there is a transfer so a transmission from animals that hosts permanently the virus to the species human. And conditions of this transmission are known, it is primarily in the butchering or handling of these animals, that the transfer or transmission may occur.

http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20140827-e...07646384189454

 

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: OCHA - Update on the Ebola virus disease in DRC (August 30, 2014)

Re: OCHA - Update on the Ebola virus disease in DRC (August 30, 2014)

Update on the Ebola virus disease in DRC, No. 5, 30 August 2014

REPORT from UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Published on 30 Aug 2014

Update

* The total number of cases identified in the Boende health zone as of 29 August 2014 is 53, including 13 confirmed cases.

* Among the remaining 40 cases, 21 are probable and 12 are suspected cases and are being followed up by the field teams.

* The number of deaths remains 13, no additional death recorded.

* Analysis conducted on all samples from Boende which had been sent to Germany reveals the ZAIRE strain, 99% homologous to KIKWIT.

* The cities of Boende, Monkoto (Equateur) and Lomela (northern Eastern Kasa?) are currently considered to be at risk. One of the patients hospitalised at the HGR Boende had managed to escape before being recovered by the services deployed to the field.

Coordination

* Publication of guidelines for travellers to foreign countries from DRC border posts by the National Programme on Hygiene at the Borders (NPHB).

* Holding of daily meetings of the National Committee on Coordination (CNC) at the office of the Minister of Health.

Security and logistics

* Announcement by the Government of the provision of a cargo flight today, 30 August 2014.


UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs:
To learn more about OCHA's activities, please visit http://unocha.org/.

http://reliefweb.int/report/democra...e-ebola-virus-disease-drc-no-5-30-august-2014

 

[sharon sanders]

hat tip Michael Coston


Virological analysis: no link between Ebola outbreaks in west Africa and Democratic Republic of Congo

Situation assessment - 2 September 2014

Results from virus sequencing of samples from the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) were received last night. The virus is the Zaire strain, in a lineage most closely related to a virus from the 1995 Ebola outbreak in Kikwit, DRC.

The Zaire strain of the virus is indigenous in the country. Ebola first emerged in 1976 in almost simultaneous outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) and South Sudan (then Sudan).

Confirmatory testing was done at Gabon?s Centre International de Recherches M?dicales in Franceville, a WHO collaborating centre. Earlier, testing in DRC confirmed Ebola in 6 of 8 samples.

The outbreak is located in the remote Boende district, Equateur province in the north-western part of the country.

Results from virus characterization, together with findings from the epidemiological investigation, are definitive: the outbreak in DRC is a distinct and independent event, with no relationship to the outbreak in west Africa.

As the Gabon laboratory report clearly stated, ?the virus in the Boende district is definitely not derived from the virus strain currently circulating in west Africa.?

These findings are reassuring, as they exclude the possibility that the virus has spread from West to Central Africa.

Epidemiological investigation has linked the index case, who died on 11 August, to the preparation of bushmeat for consumption.

This is the country?s seventh Ebola outbreak since 1976. The introduction of the virus into the human population following contact with infected bushmeat (usually fruit bats or monkeys) is consistent with the pattern seen at the start of previous outbreaks. The virus is now spreading from person to person.

The response team has, to date, identified 53 cases consistent with the case definition for Ebola virus disease, including 31 deaths. Seven of these deaths were among health care workers. More than 160 contacts are being traced.

The government has rapidly mounted a robust response by reactivating emergency committees at national, provincial, and local levels, setting up isolation centres, and providing community leaders with facts about the disease. The government will ensure that all burials are safe.

The WHO team confirmed that collaboration between the government and its key partners is excellent.

The outbreak zone, where the most intense transmission is occurring, is remote, located some 1200 kilometres from the capital city, Kinshasa. No paved roads run from the outbreak zone to Kinshasa. However, cases have been detected or transmission is ongoing at three sites, underscoring the need to watch the outbreak?s evolution closely.

Motorcycles, canoes, and satellite phones have been supplied to facilitate outbreak investigation and contact tracing. A dedicated helicopter will be made available soon.

WHO media contacts:
Fad?la Chaib
Telephone: + 41 22 791 3228
Mobile:+ 41 79 475 55 56
Email: chaibf@who.int

Tarik Jasarevic
Mobile: +41 793 676 214
Tel: +41 22 791 5099
E-mail: jasarevict@who.int


http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/ebola/2-september-2014/en/