The emergency coordinator of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Ituri, Florent Uzzeni, has pointed out that in this province in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo, more than 500 suspected cases of Ebola have been detected and has warned that "there are surely many more".
"The isolation units are full, so people cannot go to hospitals for treatment. It is too early to estimate the extent of this epidemic," Uzzeni stated.
Given this situation, he indicated that the immediate priority is to protect the population, healthcare personnel, and patients, both those affected by the Ebola virus and those suffering from other diseases that require medical attention. "To this end, hygiene measures must be reinforced, triage systems established, and the number of isolations considerably increased," he added.
Uzzeni stressed that Ituri is an isolated area in the east of the country, where the humanitarian crisis was already severe before the current outbreak. "There are several large displacement camps where access to water and healthcare was already more than limited. Today, with this crisis, it is very difficult to deliver material aid or send personnel to the area," he declared.
In this regard, he detailed that on Wednesday they received medicines, protection and isolation kits, and 3,000 personal protective equipment in four flights from Kampala, Uganda. "In the coming days and weeks, we will also receive up to 900 m2, that is, about 200 tons of material, from our logistics center in Bordeaux," he announced.
MSF intends to continue expanding its operational capacity by opening Ebola treatment centers and contact tracing, in order to detect possible cases early.
"Of course, we will also continue to treat all other diseases that are not Ebola, so that people continue to go to health centers; therefore, we will support these health centers in terms of hygiene, admission and triage processes, and medicines in order to continue treating the population," Uzzeni concluded.