EBOLA DEATH IN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

13, Apr 2020

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Why in News?

  • World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has recently recorded a second Ebola death in days following more than seven weeks without a new case.

Key Points:

  • The Ebola outbreak in DRC has killed more than 2000 people since 2018. (Almost killed about two thirds of those it infected).
  • The cases appear when the Democratic Republic of Congo had been due to mark an end to the second-deadliest outbreak of the virus on record.
  • Flare-ups or one-off transmissions (sudden outburst) are common towards the end of Ebola outbreaks, and a new case does not necessarily mean that the virus will spread out of control again.
  • It is not yet clear how the new cases emerged. Neither there was any contact with other Ebola patients, nor the patient was a survivor of the virus which could have relapsed.

About Ebola Virus Disease:

  • Ebola virus disease was first discovered in 1976 near the Ebola River in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
  • Since then, the virus has been infecting people from time to time, leading to outbreaks in several African countries.
  • Transmission:Fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are natural Ebola virus hosts.
  • Animal to human transmission is Possible.
  • Human-to-human transmission: Ebola spreads via direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with:
    • Blood or body fluids of a person who is sick with or has died from Ebola.
    • Objects that have been contaminated with body fluids (like blood, feces, vomit) from a person sick with Ebola or the body of a person who died from Ebola.

Diagnostic Methods:

  • Antibody-capture Enzyme-linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA). It also tests Acute Encephalitis Syndrome and Kyasanur Forest Disease.
    • Antigen-capture detection tests
    • Serum neutralization test
    • Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) assay
    • Electron microscopy
    • Virus isolation by cell culture.
  • Vaccines:An experimental Ebola vaccine, called rVSV-ZEBOV proved highly protective against EVD in a major trial in Guinea in 2015.
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