Health workers race to contain Congo’s fast-spreading Ebola

Medical personnel were rushing on ​Monday to the frontlines of a new Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo whose late detection and quick spread have alarmed health experts.
The World Health ‌Organization on Sunday declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern because of the high risk the disease could spread further beyond DRC’s borders after two cases were confirmed in Kampala, the capital of neighbouring Uganda.
The outbreak is suspected to have killed around 80 people in recent weeks, with eight cases confirmed by laboratory testing and 246 suspected cases reported in eastern DRC’s Ituri province.
Another case was confirmed in neighbouring North Kivu province’s ​capital, Goma, according to the M23 rebels who control the city. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also said on Sunday that it was supporting partners withdrawing ​a small number of directly affected Americans.
A delegation led by DRC Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba arrived in Ituri’s capital Bunia on Sunday with ⁠tents to set up treatment centres to support strained local hospitals.
“This is not a mystical disease,” he told Reuters. “Make yourself known so that you can be taken care of and so that ​we can prevent the disease from spreading.”
WHO’s representative in DRC, Anne Ancia, said WHO had emptied its stocks of protective equipment in the capital Kinshasa and was now preparing a cargo plane ​to bring additional supplies from a depot in Kenya.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said on Monday it was deploying an expert to its African counterpart’s headquarters in Ethiopia to support operational planning, and the U.S. CDC said it planned to send more people to its offices in the DRC and Uganda.
On Monday, the U.S. embassy in Uganda said it had temporarily paused all visa services in Uganda in light of ​the Ebola virus outbreak in the East African nation, effectively restricting travel. And a Reuters witness said Congolese people trying to cross into Rwanda from Bukavu were stopped by authorities at ​the border.