A new Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is irrelevant with 6-month-old epidemic in West Africa genetic analysis has confirmed. Although the virus belongs to the same species, Ebola-Zaire strain is genetically different if it "is certainly not a spread of the epidemic in West Africa," said virologist Eric Leroy of the International Centre for medical research in Franceville, the World health Organization (wHO) Collaborating Centre in Gabon that characterizes the virus DRC.
Meanwhile, wHO and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has issued fresh aujourd 'hui and even the most urgent appeals for immediate massive international action to contain the west African epidemic is spiraling out of control. At a United Nations conference today, Joanne Liu MSF has painted a picture particularly desperate situation on the ground.
"Ebola treatment centers are reduced to places where people go to die alone, where a little more than palliative care is offered," said Liu. " It is impossible to track the number of people infected flow into the facility. In Sierra Leone, infectious organisms are rotting in the streets. Rather than build new Ebola treatment centers in Liberia, we are forced to build crematoria. "
In the same statement, the Director-General Margaret Chan has raised his fist and called for" Action, action, action! "
L epidemic in the DRC, first reported to WHO on August 26, has so far sickened 53 people and killed 31, according to WHO. the results of early tests suggested the two outbreaks were caused by two different species of Ebola virus (There are five species of Ebola virus, three of which cause epidemics in humans :. Zaire, Sudan and Bundibugyo). But the epidemic in the DRC, like that of West Africa, have proven to be Zaire, Leroy wrote science Insider in an email during the weekend.
Now, a sequence of 346 base pairs of one of the genes of the virus showed that both homes are not directly related. Fragment seven mutations compared with the genomes of the current outbreak in Guinea, but only four mutations relative to the strain that caused the outbreak first known Ebola in 1976, also in the DRC, which then was named Zaire. It is even more closely linked by only three changes to the strain that caused an epidemic in the Congolese city of Kikwit in 1995. Leroy said he hopes to have a complete genome sequence of the new strain of the DRC at the end from this week.
Epidemiological investigation did not suggest links between the two homes either. The index case in the DRC is believed to have been a pregnant woman Ikanamongo Village in the north, which prepared the bushmeat hunted by her husband.
The epidemic area in the DRC is in a remote area about 1,0 kilometers north of Kinshasa. "Bikes, canoes, and satellite phones were provided to facilitate outbreak investigation and contact tracing," a statement issued today by the WHO noted. "A dedicated helicopter will be available soon."
this remoteness makes it more difficult answer, but there is also reason to be confident that this epidemic can be contained, Leroy said, because infected people will not travel as much as they do in Africa West. in addition, he said, "the DRC has extensive experience with outbreaks of Ebola, so that all people know very well what to do to stop the epidemic."
In West Africa, meanwhile, the epidemic shows no sign of slowing. If it continues to accelerate at the current pace, the virus could sicken more than 10,000 people 24 September, according to scientists trying to predict the spread of the virus.
Public health experts are sounding increasingly alarmed. "There is a window of opportunity to pack this fall, but that window is closing. We must act now to intensify the response," said Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, during a press conference after returning from a visit to affected countries in West Africa.
"In a way, the most shocking thing I've seen is that I do not see," said Frieden. "I do not see enough beds for treatment. Thus, in a facility that had opened with 35 beds, there were 63 patients, many of them lying on the ground. I do not see data from large parts of the country where the Ebola virus could spread. I not see the kind of rapid response team is needed to stop a single cluster to become a major epidemic. "
During the briefing the UN, Liu MSF strongly criticized the reaction international to the epidemic so far, MSF has done before. "The response has been too little, too late," she said. Liu also criticized the fact that the WHO has not declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) until August 8 . "We lost six months," she said.
At a press conference later, Chan acknowledged that the WHO and other organizations have realized too late the gravity of the epidemic would become. "I think it's fair to say that all the organizations involved in this underestimated the complexity and scale" of the epidemic, she said. But Chan defended the time of the declaration of USPI, which was triggered by the appearance of the Ebola virus in Nigeria. "I think it was the right time to call," she said
* Ebola files given :. the epidemic of Ebola current, unprecedented in terms of the number of people killed and the rapid geographic spread, science and science Translational Medicine have a collection of items research and news on the viral disease available for researchers and the general public.
0 Komentar