Sunday, August 18, 2019

Congo's Measles Epidemic

Measles has killed 2,758 people in the DR Congo since January, more than the Ebola epidemic in a year, medical NGO Doctors Without Borders said. In the country’s east, Ebola has claimed more than 1,900 lives since erupting last August.

“Since July, the epidemic has worsened, with a rise in new cases reported in several provinces,” said the NGO

The disease, preventable with a vaccine, has infected over 145,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo between January and early August.

“Only $2.5 million has been raised out of the $8.9 million required for the Health Cluster response plan -- in stark contrast with the Ebola epidemic in the east of the country, which attracts multiple organisations and hundreds of millions of dollars in funding,” it added. 

Without a “massive mobilisation of funds and response organisations, the current measles outbreak in DRCongo could get even worse.

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