With the World Health Organization (WHO) announcing a global health emergency in the Democratic Republic of Congo, it’s critical to understand what this means and why an Ebola outbreak poses such a significant threat. The global health emergency signifies an “extraordinary event” that presents a risk to other countries, necessitating a coordinated international response. However, caution should be taken not to stigmatise or penalise the people of affected regions through travel or trade restrictions, which can hinder much-needed aid.
Delineation of a Global Health Emergency
A global health emergency as declared by the WHO is an event of extreme magnitude which can affect multiple countries and requires a unified global response. This response is both financial and technical. It’s important to note that such declarations should not lead to measures such as travel or trade restrictions that could impede the flow of goods and healthcare workers into the affected countries. Instead, these declarations should increase international attention and aid towards the emergency.
Ebola Outbreaks: Past and Present
The largest Ebola outbreak recorded since the virus was first discovered in 1976 was between 2014–2016 in West Africa. Originating in Guinea, the outbreak subsequently moved across land borders to Sierra Leone and Liberia. The current 2018-2019 outbreak in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is highly complex. Interestingly, the WHO had recently released a list of “Ten threats to global health in 2019”, including Ebola.
Ebola Virus Disease: Transmission, Symptoms, and Diagnosis
Ebola, formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, can transmit from wild animals to humans and spreads through human-to-human transmission. Regarding transmission, fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are the natural hosts of the Ebola virus. From animal to human transmission, Ebola enters the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs, or other bodily fluids of infected animals such as fruit bats, chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys, forest antelope, or porcupines. Human-to-human transmission takes place via direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with an infected person’s blood or body fluids, or objects contaminated by those body fluids.
| Animal-to-Human Transmission | Human-to-Human Transmission |
|---|---|
| Contact with blood, secretions, organs or bodily fluids of infected animals | Contact with blood or body fluids of an infected person, or contaminated objects |
Symptoms of Ebola Virus Disease
Ebola symptoms can suddenly manifest and include fever, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, vomiting, diarrhoea, and signs of impaired kidney and liver function. In some cases, both internal and external bleeding may occur. Diagnosing Ebola can be difficult as its symptoms mimic other infectious diseases such as malaria, typhoid fever, and meningitis. Confirmation is made using diagnostic methods like ELISA, antigen-capture detection tests, serum neutralization test, reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction assay, electron microscopy, and virus isolation by cell culture.