The Ebola virus causes fever, vomiting and severe diarrhoea, often followed by organ failure and internal and external bleeding. It is highly contagious and often fatal. Health Minister Diana Gashumba admitted there had been slowdowns in traffic at the border, but said these were caused by stepped-up health screenings in response to the new infections in Goma, a transit hub of nearly 2 million people just 7km (4.5 miles) from Rwanda’s main border town of Gisenyi. 

“The border was never closed and it is not closed,” Mrs Gashumba told reporters, contradicting an earlier claim by the Congolese presidency that the frontier has been shut. 

The confirmation of a third case in Goma earlier in the day sparked fears the virus could take root in the densely populated city, which is located more than 350km (220 miles) south of where the outbreak was first detected. 

Some 45,000 people go through the main border post between the two countries each day, according to an immigration official. 

A fourth Ebola case was confirmed in Goma later on Thursday. The patient is the wife of the second Goma case and mother of the third – a one-year-old baby, World Health Organisation (WHO) coordinator Boubacar Diallo said. 

“We are carrying out investigations,” he added. 

The second Goma case, who died on Wednesday, was a gold miner who had been working in Mungwalu in Ituri province, an Ebola hotspot, and had returned home to his wife and 10 children. 

He died because he sought treatment too late and was already bleeding, authorities said. 

But the new cases in Goma are not linked to the first case, according to health officials. 

The first Goma fatality, reported in mid-July, was an evangelical preacher who travelled to Goma by bus from Butembo, one of the towns worst hit by the outbreak. 

The pastor’s death and spread of the disease to Goma prompted the WHO to declare the outbreak an international health emergency, sounding a rarely used global alarm bell. 

It was earlier reluctant to do so, partly out of fear DR Congo’s neighbours would shut their frontiers and impose strict trade or travel restrictions. 

The outbreak in poverty-struck DR Congo has claimed more than 1,800 lives since it was declared exactly one year ago. It is the second-deadliest on record after the 2013-2016 West Africa epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people. 

So far, a campaign of vigilance and vaccination encompassing almost 75 million screenings has successfully kept the outbreak confined to the country’s northeast.

As a result, only two Ebola deaths have been reported in neighbouring Uganda, and there have been no registered cases in Rwanda.

However, a dangerous mix of militia violence and a deep-seated mistrust of health workers and officials have hobbled efforts to contain the outbreak and halt its spread. 

Ebola causes haemorrhagic fever, vomiting and severe diarrhoea, often followed by kidney and liver failure and internal and external bleeding. It is highly contagious and often leads to death. 

Source: Read Full Article