What’s going on with the latest Ebola outbreak?
On May 8, 2018, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) declared a new outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) centered on the market town of Bikoro, near the DRC’s border with the Republic of Congo.
The Ebola virus, which spreads through contact with bodily fluids, causes severe illness which is often fatal if untreated. The 2014–2016 West Africa outbreak, the largest in history, killed more than 11,000 people. As of a May 28 report from the World Health Organization, the DRC outbreak included 51 cases and 25 deaths. This is DRC’s ninth Ebola outbreak since 1976; the most recent outbreak occurred in 2017.
Here, two Ebola experts, John Connor and Nahid Bhadelia, discuss the unfolding situation in the DRC.
Connor is an associate professor of microbiology, and an investigator at the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL), who studies better ways to diagnose Ebola virus disease. Bhadelia is an assistant professor in the section of infectious diseases, and the medical director of the Special Pathogens Unit at Boston Medical Center, which is designed to care for patients with highly communicable diseases. During the West African outbreak, Bhadelia made four trips to Sierra Leone to care for patients, work with survivors, and collect public health data.
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