Close Menu
    WHO chief says Ebola outbreak in Congo is 'spreading rapidly' and upgrades risk assessment
    World News

    WHO chief says Ebola outbreak in Congo is ‘spreading rapidly’ and upgrades risk assessment

    Share.
    View 27 Comments

    27 Comments

    1. yahoonews on

      [AP reports – ](https://www.yahoo.com/news/world/articles/chief-says-ebola-outbreak-congo-123531435.html?ncid=redditnewsus)The head of the World Health Organization said Friday that the Ebola outbreak in Congo is “spreading rapidly” and now poses a “very high” risk at the national level.

      WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the U.N. health agency was revising upward to “very high” its assessment of the risk within Congo, which had previously been deemed as high. The risk remains high for regional spread and low at global levels, he told reporters.

      The WHO chief noted that 82 cases have been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with seven confirmed deaths, “but we know the epidemic in DRC is much larger.”

      He said there are now almost 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths. The situation in neighboring Uganda is “stable” with two cases confirmed in people who had traveled from Congo, with one death.

    2. Current-Function-729 on

      > The U.S. has pledged $23 million in funding to bolster the response in Congo and Uganda, and said it would also fund the establishment of up to 50 Ebola treatment clinics in the affected regions of Congo and Uganda.

      I’m relatively surprised that’s happening with the current admin. I guess the deep state endures.

    3. greenmachine11235 on

      The risk comes down to African burial practices. In Africa it’s common for mourners to touch or kiss the deceased even if they died of a communicable disease. That’s not the case in the west, maybe in some ethnic groups but not on a large scale. That’ll limit the spread if it does escape the Congo. 

    7. CrustedTesticle on

      Start closing every airport within a certain mile radius of the affected area. Probably too late though.

    8. __Hello_my_name_is__ on

      What fascinates me is how easy it is to spread alarmist messages on reddit like this.

      > The risk remains […] low at global levels, he told reporters.

      But hey, “spreading rapidly” and “upgrades risk” will get more clicks, so let’s go with that.

    9. Favidex on

      It’s definitely concerning, but the part that isn’t in the headline is:
      “The risk remains high for regional spread and low at global levels.”

    13. Avenheit on

      hopefully they can convince the locals to stop burning down the treatment centers

    14. AnomalyNexus on

      So do I need to go buy an unreasonable amount of TP already? Or we not doing the panic buy random items this time?

    16. Ben_C17 on

      The $23 million and 50 clinics pledge sounds solid until you factor in where those clinics need to go. Eastern Congo where this outbreak is centered has been dealing with M23 rebel activity and fragmented state control for over a year. Previous Ebola responses in the region saw treatment centers attacked, health workers killed, and communities refusing contact tracing because they didn’t trust outside authorities.

      The upgrade to “very high” national risk likely reflects that operational reality as much as transmission rates. You can fund clinics, but if armed groups control access routes or local populations view responders as aligned with Kinshasa, containment gets exponentially harder. We’ve been tracking this pattern across conflicts that intersect with health crises on panopsik.com the disease spread becomes inseparable from who controls ground access and whether communities cooperate.

      Uganda’s the bigger worry for regional spread. They share a porous border with limited enforcement, and cross-border movement is constant.

    17. BuffWobbuffet on

      Love how the article verbatim says the global risk is low but this site is full of morons who never actually read the articles posted, just race to get the top comment no matter how misinformed it is.

    18. wheelienonstop10 on

      Maybe burning down more hospitals would help hinder the spread, has anybody suggested that to the Congolese?

      Man with news like this you can really see why Africa is in the state it is in, and has been continually for centuries.

    19. Ognius on

      Maybe don’t burn down the field hospital that was containing the spread of Ebola?

    21. Ithaqua-Yigg on

      Ebola only needs to mutate slightly to go airborn, it happened in Reston VA lab in the 80s but by an unbelievable stroke of luck or grace of God whatever change happened to make it airborn also made it not effect humans. *info from (The Hot Zone by Richard Preston)

    24. ConversationPale8665 on

      There are consequences to cancelling aid to these countries via programs like USAID. It’s only been a year and we’re already seeing the negative consequences… MAHA???

    25. fuzzy_dice_99 on

      We had an Ebola scare during the Obama years but most people don’t know that because we had adults who took it seriously

    26. IdeliverNCIs on

      It’s a good thing Trump took us out of the WHO, because less reporting=never happened

    27. cancercureall on

      Well well well, pandemic was a great game but I didn’t think it was practice.

      SHUT DOWN THE PORTS, ALL OF THEM.