The second patient infected with the Ebola virus
in Congo's major city of Goma has died, almost exactly a year after
the start of the epidemic, a health official said Wednesday.
"The patient ... died Wednesday morning because he was already
weakened and his illness was discovered late," Jean-Jacques Muyembe,
the director of the Institute for Biomedical Research, which is
leading Congo's Ebola response, told dpa.
Health authorities started Wednesday a vaccination campaign in Goma
in an attempt to contain the spread of the disease, hours after the
second case was detected in Goma, a city of about 2 million people
which borders Rwanda.
Everyone who has come into contact with the patient will be
vaccinated, said Muyembe, adding that there was "no reason to panic."
The patient had travelled to Goma from the province of Ituri and
developed the first symptoms of the disease on July 22, Congolese
authorities said in a statement.
A first case of Ebola was reported in Goma in mid-July, with the
patient dying shortly thereafter, leading to the World Health
Organization (WHO) declaring the outbreak an international health
emergency.
Eastern Congo has been at the centre of the second-worst Ebola
outbreak in history since August 1, 2018.
But until this month, no major cities had been affected by the
epidemic.
Rwanda and other neighbouring countries - South Sudan, Uganda and
Burundi in particular - are now on high alert.
The virus has killed more than 1,700 people, while more than 2,600
people are infected with the disease, which causes a fever and often
leads to massive internal bleeding and fatalities, according to the
WHO.
"Ultimately, Ebola will continue to spread alongside malaria,
measles, cholera [and] polio, as long as the people of the DRC and
other countries do not have stronger health systems, access to clean
water, roads, education and all the other building blocks of a
healthy society," WHO regional director for Africa Matshidiso Moeti
told reporters in a telephone briefing.
A Congolese health worker administers an Ebola vaccine to a man at the Himbi Health Centre in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo on July 1.