The Ministry of Health has published EBOLA DRC - Evolution of the response of the Ebola outbreak to Tuesday 05 June 2018. Excerpt:
EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SITUATION
Tuesday 05 June 2018
The epidemiological situation of the Ebola Virus Disease dated 04 June 2018:
• A total of 58 cases of haemorrhagic fever were reported in the region, including 37 confirmed, 14 probable and 7 suspected.
• 5 new suspected cases, including 2 in Bikoro and 3 in Iboko. These are all known contacts.
• 4 samples were negative
• Death of a confirmed case in Bikoro
• Death of a suspected case in Iboko whose family refused to take samples
• No new cases confirmed today
Epidemiological analyses have identified contacts living in nearby health areas in Bikoro and Iboko. These contacts are followed and advised to limit their movements during the entire follow-up period of 21 days.
Remarks
• Negative tests are systematically removed from the summary table.
• The category of probable cases includes all reported deaths for which it was not possible to obtain biological samples for laboratory confirmation.
News from the Ebola response
Vaccination
Since the launch of the vaccination on May 21, 1,369 people have been vaccinated, including 597 in Mbandaka, 299 in Bikoro and 473 in Iboko.
Supported
• All trials of experimental treatments in the Democratic Republic of Congo must follow strict procedures of validation and administration, under the supervision of the National Institute of Biomedical Research.
• A joint scientific committee has been established at the national level to evaluate existing experimental treatments for Ebola. This committee is composed of experts from the National Institute of Biomedical Research, the University of Kinshasa and partners such as WHO, MSF, UNICEF, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and UCLA. After validation of 5 treatments whose results were promising during the first phases of research, the scientific committee then submitted an application for approval to the ethics committee.
• On Friday, June 1, 2018, the National Ethics Committee gave a favorable opinion to the request made by the Scientific Committee.
• A group of Congolese and international clinicians was deployed in the field to evaluate, on a case-by-case basis, the criteria for administering one or other of these treatments to patients hospitalized at Ebola treatment centers.
• To date, no experimental treatment has been given to hospitalized patients. Discussions on how to administer treatment in the context of the current epidemic are still ongoing between the different stakeholders.
• Given the evolution of the epidemiological curve, it is very likely that very few patients are eligible to receive either of these molecules.
