WEST AFRICA HEALTHCARE STRAINED BY EBOLA, COVID OUTBREAKS: WHO

The new outbreaks show the multitude of challenges governments are fighting in parallel with the pandemic, Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, told a news conference on Thursday.

Ivory Coast began vaccinating health workers against Ebola in the commercial capital Abidjan on Monday after a case of the deadly virus was confirmed over the weekend.

The country on Saturday declared its first case of Ebola since 1994. Authorities said it was an isolated case of an 18-year-old girl who travelled from neighbouring Guinea.

Last week, health authorities in Guinea confirmed one death from Marburg, which is similar to Ebola.

Africa faces more infectious disease outbreaks every year than any other region, Moeti said.

Meanwhile, WHO data shows that West Africa in the past month recorded the highest number of COVID-19 deaths since the pandemic began, and cases are surging in Ivory Coast, Guinea and Nigeria – all three of which have recently been hit with other outbreaks.

Separately, Ivory Coast has identified an outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu near the commercial capital Abidjan and has taken steps to curb its spread, the government said on Thursday.

“Facing three outbreaks at the same time, for any health system, it’s a very difficult situation,” Mamadou Samba, Ivory Coast’s director general of health, told the same news conference.

Samba did not respond directly to a question about how many of the many dozens of people who rode on a bus with the girl who travelled to Ivory Coast from neighbouring Guinea had been identified.