Via Koma Ebola: To declare the end of the epidemic, all outbreaks must exceed 42 days without a new infection (Dr Bibiche Matadi). The Google translation:
In recent weeks, the Ebola virus disease has clearly declined. Most outbreaks in the epidemic are recording fewer and fewer cases. Others count several weeks without new infection. Therefore, the population is impatient to know when the end of the epidemic will be declared.
The question comes from the city of #Butembo where one constantly asks after how long without new case can declare the end of the epidemic. "All households need to spend 42 days without notifying new cases," says Dr. Bibiche Matadi, chair of the "monitoring" subcommittee of Beni's response in an interview with Koma Ebola on Wednesday.
"As long as we still notify cases, we can not lower our guard, we must continue surveillance, we must continue vigilance until the last health zone that notifies a case follows the contacts during the 21 days. To this will be added another period of 21 days, which is 42 days," explained Dr. Matadi.
According to her, during this period, the response teams and the community must increase vigilance. "It's a job that needs to be done in an efficient way and the monitoring has to be intensive to recover all the cases, to take care of all the cases and to reassure that there are actually zero cases of Ebola in our province, zero cases of Ebola in our country," she added.
She acknowledges that several health zones have gone several days without notifying cases. But the end of the epidemic is not declared "because we are not out of business yet". Because there are also health zones that continue to report cases and "we all know that with Ebola, only one case is enough to declare the outbreak," said the head of surveillance at Beni.
"Before we declare the end of the epidemic, we take care, we take every precaution to ensure that all cases of the disease have been found and isolated; this to cut the chain of transmission. And we have to work with the community," said Dr. Bibiche Matadi.
Since the health zone of #Beni has recently reported a new case, there are suspicious cases at the Transit Center waiting for their laboratory results. "But we have patients at the Ebola Treatment Center," concluded the president of the "monitoring" subcommittee of Beni's response.
