KINSHASA: Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have declared a new outbreak of the Ebola virus, which has killed 15 people since the end of August, the health minister said Thursday.
The new outbreak is in central Kasai Province, Samuel Roger Kamba told reporters in the capital Kinshasa.
The last outbreak of Ebola in the vast central African nation was three years ago and killed six people.
Twenty-eight suspected cases have been recorded in Kasai Province, according to provisional figures, with the first case reported on August 20 in a 34-year-old pregnant woman who was admitted to hospital.
“It’s the 16th outbreak recorded in our country,” Kamba said.
Case numbers are likely to increase, according to the World Health Organization, which has dispatched experts alongside a Congolese response team to Kasai Province.
The DRC has a stockpile of treatments for this viral haemorrhagic fever as well as 2,000 doses of vaccines that will be moved to Kasai from the capital Kinshasa.
“We’re acting with determination to rapidly halt the spread of the virus and protect communities,” said WHO Regional Director for Africa Mohamed Janabi.
First identified in 1976 and thought to have crossed over from bats, Ebola is a deadly viral disease spread through direct contact with bodily fluids, causing severe bleeding and organ failure.
The deadliest outbreak in the DRC — whose population numbers more than 100 million — killed nearly 2,300 people between 2018 and 2020.
Six strains of Ebola exist.
Health authorities say the Zaire strain — for which there is a vaccine — is the cause of the new outbreak.
“Fortunately we have a vaccine for this Zaire strain but to deploy it we need to ensure the logistics,” Health Minister Kamba said.
Four times the size of France, the DRC has poor infrastructure, with often limited and poorly maintained lines of communication.
New Ebola outbreak in DR Congo kills 15: health minister
https://arab.news/4n2eq
New Ebola outbreak in DR Congo kills 15: health minister
- The last outbreak of Ebola in the vast central African nation was three years ago and killed six people
- Twenty-eight suspected cases have been recorded in Kasai Province
Italian police fire tear gas as protesters clash near Winter Olympics hockey venue
- Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue
MILAN: Italian police fired tear gas and a water cannon at dozens of protesters who threw firecrackers and tried to access a highway near a Winter Olympics venue on Saturday.
The brief confrontation came at the end of a peaceful march by thousands against the environmental impact of the Games and the presence of US agents in Italy.
Police held off the violent demonstrators, who appeared to be trying to reach the Santagiulia Olympic ice hockey rink, after the skirmish. By then, the larger peaceful protest, including families with small children and students, had dispersed.
Earlier, a group of masked protesters had set off smoke bombs and firecrackers on a bridge overlooking a construction site about 800 meters (a half-mile) from the Olympic Village that’s housing around 1,500 athletes.
Police vans behind a temporary metal fence secured the road to the athletes’ village, but the protest veered away, continuing on a trajectory toward the Santagiulia venue. A heavy police presence guarded the entire route.
There was no indication that the protest and resulting road closure interfered with athletes’ transfers to their events, all on the outskirts of Milan.
The demonstration coincided with US Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Milan as head of the American delegation that attended the opening ceremony on Friday.
He and his family visited Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” closer to the city center, far from the protest, which also was against the deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to provide security to the US delegation.
US Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE unit that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. The ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown in the US is known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there is no indication its officers are being sent to Italy.
At the larger, peaceful demonstration, which police said numbered 10,000, people carried cardboard cutouts to represent trees felled to build the new bobsled run in Cortina. A group of dancers performed to beating drums. Music blasted from a truck leading the march, one a profanity-laced anti-ICE anthem.
“Let’s take back the cities and free the mountains,” read a banner by a group calling itself the Unsustainable Olympic Committee. Another group called the Association of Proletariat Excursionists organized the cutout trees.
“They bypassed the laws that usually are needed for major infrastructure project, citing urgency for the Games,” said protester Guido Maffioli, who expressed concern that the private entity organizing the Games would eventually pass on debt to Italian taxpayers.
Homemade signs read “Get out of the Games: Genocide States, Fascist Police and Polluting Sponsors,” the final one a reference to fossil fuel companies that are sponsors of the Games. One woman carried an artificial tree on her back decorated with the sign: “Infernal Olympics.”
The demonstration followed another last week when hundreds protested the deployment of ICE agents.
Like last week, demonstrators Saturday said they were opposed to ICE agents’ presence, despite official statements that a small number of agents from an investigative arm would be present in US diplomatic territory, and not operational on the streets.
