WHO declares global health emergency over Congo Ebola outbreak
by Séamus Bellamy · Boing BoingThe Democratic Republic of Congo has been hit by an outbreak of Ebola. According to the African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the outbreak was discovered in the northeast of the African nation. It's not the first time that the country's citizens have had to endure the fear of contracting the deadly hemorrhagic fever: there have been 17 outbreaks, that we know of, since the virus was discovered 50 years ago. At the time this post was written, authorities had confirmed that the latest outbreak had killed 88 people. Around 300 more may also have contracted the disease.
Ebola is transmitted via direct contact with an infected individual's body fluids and enters the body through a person's mucous membranes or an open wound. It can live and be contracted from used medical equipment or bedsheets, and, perhaps most alarming of all, it can continue to be spread by a biologically male survivor of Ebola through his semen over a year after they've recovered from the symptoms of the disease. And, like damn near everything else that's not a missile and has been trying to kill us of late, virologists are pretty sure fruit bats can carry it. But flying mice aren't the issue here. One of the most difficult aspects of containing the disease is that the Congolese population, along with those from neighboring countries such as Uganda, comprises highly mobile, transient populations. People move around for work, resources, and to flee conflict zones.
Over the weekend, World Health Organization honcho Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced that a team had been sent to investigate the outbreak and help trace its origins. Additionally, the WHO has made $500,000 in emergency aid available for much-needed medical supplies and logistics. And on Saturday, a global health emergency was declared. This doesn't mean a pandemic is on its way — the WHO has said it's not yet advising against closing national borders to stem the spread. Declaring a global health emergency is the WHO's way of telling the governments of the world that shit's going down and they need to pay attention; to prompt the offer of aid resources and personnel to contain a sickness before it becomes uncontainable.
Under the leadership of Robert Kennedy Jr's brain worm, which runs his ass like a fucking sock puppet, the American Centres for Disease Control have been gutted. The loss of resources, funding and scientific expertise that have gone on under Kennedy's time with the Trump administration has left this country alarmingly unprepared to combat a health crisis here or abroad. You want the latter to keep the former from being an issue. What help America can offer, or whether it will be offered at all, remains to be seen.
Image: Depositphotos.com
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