Africa CDC: The continent faces other challenges after the end of the Ebola outbreak
Nairobi, January 12th. The African Union Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) today welcomed the announcement of an end to the Ebola outbreak in Uganda, but stressed the need to continue working with other health “challenges” on the continent, such as cholera. or coronavirus.
“We started 2023 with very good news (the announcement on Wednesday of the end of the Ebola outbreak in Uganda), but we also have some challenges pending,” CDC Africa Acting Director Ahmed Oguil said at a news conference. . Information technologies.
Ogwill confirmed that both the African Foundation and the Ugandan authorities will continue intensive surveillance in Uganda for at least ninety days to prevent the resurgence of new infections with Ebola, the disease that has left 142 confirmed cases and 55 deaths since last September.
In addition, Uganda will continue to improve its laboratories and outreach programs for local communities will continue.
“The end of the outbreak does not mean that the virus is extinct. It is still present on our planet, although it is not actively spreading in communities,” Oguel said.
“Outbreaks begin and end in communities. If communities can quickly identify an outbreak and report it to authorities, we can end it faster, before it affects more people,” he added.
The Africa CDC will also continue to work with diseases such as smallpox, coronavirus, cholera, measles, yellow fever or West Nile virus that are found on the continent.
Oguel was particularly worried about cholera outbreaks in countries such as Malawi, Burundi, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mozambique, killing one in ten people who contracted the disease.
“It is the rainy season in many places, and the floods and heavy rains have facilitated the spread of this disease,” the Kenyan epidemiologist lamented.
The worst scenario is happening in Malawi, where nearly 22,800 cases and 750 deaths have been recorded since last March.
On Thursday, Oguel announced the dispatch of a new team of emergency experts from the Africa Center for Disease Control to Malawi.
Coronavirus is one of the diseases of concern to the CDC in Africa, although Oguel stressed that despite an increase in infections in recent weeks and that the continent has “much more cases than we wish”, “the numbers are still under control”. EFE
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