Ebola expert warns disease will NEVER be eradicated as confirmed cases RISE to 42 in Congo

Wednesday, May 16, 2018
By Paul Martin

THE LETHAL Ebola virus will never be eradicated, scientists have warned as more suspected cases of the disease have been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

By Joshua Nevett
DailyStar.co.uk
16th May 2018

At least 19 people have been killed and 42 infected in an escalating outbreak of the deadly disease in the central African nation, DRC’s Ministry of Public Health said on Tuesday.

International health workers are desperately battling to prevent the disease from spreading by quarantining patients and administering 4,000 experimental vaccines.

At least 10 African countries close to DRC, including Kenya, Nigeria and Cameroon, have been put on high alert after health authorities declared the outbreak on May 8.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is planning for the “worst case scenario” to prevent a repeat of the epidemic that ravaged West Africa between 2014 and 2016, killing more than 11,000.

Professor William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, said efforts to contain the virus will “take some time to function optimally”.

Nevertheless, because Ebola is transmitted via animals, primarily bats, preventing another outbreak of the disease is impossible, Prof Schaffer said.

The disease, a type of viral hemorrhagic fever, is endemic in DRC, meaning nothing short of a mass extermination of every animal suspected of hosting Ebola would snuff it out.

“The virus is zoonotic,” Prof Schaffner told Daily Star Online. “That is, its reservoir is in bats, so there will continue to be the hazard of new, repeated introductions into the human population.

“So eradication is not in the cards.”

Humans who come into close contact with the blood, organs and bodily fluids of animals infected with the disease are at risk.

The Rest…HERE

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