During the beginning of the year 2014, West Africa experienced the largest outbreak of Ebola in History. Ebola Virus Disease (formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever) is a deadly virus transmitted from person to person through the direct contact of blood and other body fluids of infected people. Countries such as Sierra Leone and Guinea where adversely affected by this outbreak.
According to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), there were 28,652 total suspected, probable and confirmed cases. Amongst these, 15,261 confirmed cases were recorded and a total of 11,325 deaths were reported between the years 2014-2016. In response to this past outbreak, the Policy Monitoring and Research Centre (PMRC) partnered with the Ministry of Health to increase public understanding and raise awareness on the outbreak through the production and distribution of an Ebola awareness infographic.
Early in May 2017, another outbreak was reported in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo in which 40 confirmed cases have been reported according to a media communication alert through the Ministry of Health. The outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo raises concerns to the Zambian Government due to the close proximity and extensive shared border between Zambia and Congo which is estimated to be about 2,332km long (Central Intelligence Agency, 2016).
In addition to this, Zambia and Congo engage in numerous cross border-trading activities, which are not always effectively monitored. Based on the afore mentioned, and the fact that there may be a number of people from affected regions entering Zambia through nonconventional means, Zambia is at a high risk of being affected by the outbreak. To this effect, PMRC and the Ministry of Health have once again partnered to update and distribute communication information to raise awareness on the Ebola Virus. This information will soon be shared with the general public through various platforms. As a precursor to the updated Ebola Infographic to be distributed soon.PMRC would like to urge members of the general public to take a keen interest in this information to ensure that they are protected from the outbreak.
Be aware by reading more on the Ebola Virus.
Ms. Bernadette Deka