Tedros Ghebreyesus believes DR Congo is able to contain the outbreak on its own, but independent observers are not so optimistic.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has visited the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), which is currently battling a severe Ebola outbreak.
The outbreak began in DR Congo’s northeastern Ituri Province around two weeks ago. To date, it is believed to have claimed the lives of 223 people, with 906 suspected cases reported, according to estimates by the WHO.
Ghebreyesus met with senior officials and expressed confidence that the country is fully capable of containing the latest outbreak. The WHO chief warned other nations against border closures and travel bans, which have been implemented by several countries in the region, arguing that such measures only “discourage transparency.”
“The Democratic Republic of Congo has faced Ebola 16 times before and has ended every outbreak. This is the 17th. That history gives me real confidence,” Ghebreyesus said during a news conference alongside DR Congo’s Health Minister Roger Kamba.
The WHO chief urged local residents to exercise caution when burying victims of the outbreak and to seek medical help early if they display symptoms.
The optimism expressed by the WHO chief, however, has been met with skepticism from independent observers and humanitarian groups. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) pointed to the unusually rapid spread of the disease, saying its teams on the ground have witnessed “a response that has not yet caught up to the rapid spread of the epidemic.”
“Two weeks after the declaration of the Ebola outbreak in Ituri Province, the situation is deeply alarming and a legitimate source of anxiety for communities and frontline health workers alike. Never before has an Ebola outbreak recorded so many cases so soon after its declaration,” MSF Deputy Director of Operations Alan Gonzalez said, warning that “nobody knows the true scale and severity of this outbreak.”
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) earlier this week provided somewhat higher estimates than those shared by the WHO, reporting 1,077 suspected cases and 246 probable deaths as of Thursday.
The outbreak involves the Bundibugyo strain of ebolavirus, a rare and highly lethal variant with a reported mortality rate of between 25% and 50%. No approved vaccines or specific treatments exist for the strain. The virus is believed to spread through direct contact with infected bodily fluids.
Virology 101 – the more deadly the virus the less it spreads, Ebola and Marburg being prime examples.
Adenovirus is the opposite, so mild most don’t know they have it so it’s ubiquitou
The Ethiopian terrorist (not a doctor of medicine) Ghebreyesus plays his part in yet another round of fear porn for the gullible, fearful, and hopelessly naive.
What ever happened to the Hantavirus? Nobody fell for that either?
More useless eaters for the chop?
Ghebreyesus. It is unbelievable that anyone with half a brain would believe anything this little freak says. But here is the media, once again, amplifying his words as though he is some sort of god.
The WHO tried Hantavirus. They had high hopes for it – another cruise ship incubation and all that – but it sort of flickered out. Now they are trying Ebola, but it has been around so long people aren’t taking any notice any more.
After the lies the WHO has presided over in the recent past, why does this organisation still even exist?
Anybody who believes any pronouncements from the WHO deserves everything they get. If they didn’t learn from what was done to them during Covid then they are just too stupid to live.
What a load of crap!!
Lock him and his entourage up in one of those biolabs in the Congo and introduce them to Ebola.
Quick quick, shut down the planet and all get in a scurrying worldwide sheep-flock and wrap your slave -muzzles over your faces and get syringes of toxic big-pharma snake-oils injected up into your trembling arses. Hurry hurry, it’s an emergency. An eye-darting globalist corporate snake from WHO says so! Do it now… quick quick…
Snake oil salesmen at it again, with more “induced demand”. After all, big pharma needs those stretch targets to be met by end of financial year!
Yea Trump is bad for banning the WHO out of America .