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Details are just emerging, but based on the above tweet from WHO Uganda, the five-year-old diagnosed with Ebola yesterday has died, and two more people (likely relatives) have tested positive.
Today's announcement will likely increase the pressure on the WHO to declare a PHEIC (Public Health Emergency of International Concern) in the DRC, something that the IRC Emergency Committee has declined to do twice over the past 6 months (see WHO: IHR Committee Decides Ebola Outbreak In The DRC Is Not Currently A PHEIC).Meetings have been convened several times in the past few years for both MERS-CoV and Yellow Fever, but only 3 other PHEICs have been declared to date:
The bar for declaring a PHEIC is purposefully set pretty high, as invoking one does have some down sides, particularly in regards to travel and trade for an affected region.
- 2014 Polio Declaration
- 2014 West Africa Ebola Outbreak
- 2016 Zika Declaration
And it is hard to know, other than showing solidarity of purpose, exactly how a PHEIC declaration would improve the response to Ebola in the DRC.All of this comes after some encouraging signs of better containment in the DRC (see CIDRAP report WHO details some strides in Ebola response).
The coming days and weeks should tell us whether this is a tragic but temporary escalation in the crisis - or the opening of a new front - in the 10 month battle against Ebola in East Africa.
