Ebola Outbreak: Two Patients Attended Church With 50 People Before Dying – MSF

Health Workers Combating Ebola (File Photo)

Church Members Get In Contact With Ebola Patients Before Their Death

Jean-Clement Cabrol, an emergency medical coordinator at Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), on Thursday has revealed that two Ebola patients who fled the hospital in the city of Mbandaka, DR Congo, on Monday attended a prayer meeting with 50 people, hours before they died.

Naija News had earlier reported that two patients of the Ebola virus in Democratic Republic of Congo, on Monday fled the hospital where they were contained.

Health officials are working towards containing the outbreak of the deadly virus in port city in northwest Congo that is believed to have killed 22 people since April.

Two new deaths from Ebola and seven new confirmed cases have been recorded in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the health ministry said on Tuesday. One of the deaths occurred in the provincial capital of Mbandaka, according to a daily bulletin.

A nurse also died in the village of Bikoro, where the outbreak was first detected, ministry spokeswoman Jessica Ilunga revealed. The ministry said the seven new confirmed cases were registered in Bikoro.

Health officials administered an experimental vaccine on Monday to 33 medical workers and Mbandaka residents, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told reporters in Geneva.

The vaccine manufacturer Merck has provided WHO with 8,640 doses of the vaccine and an additional 8,000 doses are expected to be available in the coming days, WHO said.

Congo’s ninth outbreak of Ebola since 1976 is believed to have killed at least 28 people so far.

Officials are particularly concerned by its appearance in Mbandaka, a crowded trading hub on the Congo River with the road, water and air links to Congo’s capital, Kinshasa.

WHO said it had also released two million dollars from its Contingency Fund for Emergencies, to scale up the Ebola response.

The Government of DRC, with the support of WHO partners, is preparing to vaccinate high-risk populations against Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in affected health zones.

The organisation said health workers operating in affected areas were being vaccinated on Monday and community outreach had started to prepare for the ring vaccination.

More than 7,500 doses of the rVSV-ZEBOV Ebola vaccine have been deployed to DRC to conduct vaccination in the northwestern Equator Province where 46 suspected, probable and confirmed Ebola cases and 26 deaths have been reported – as of Friday.