The United Nations health agency says West Africa faces a complex challenge of multiple outbreaks that could strain health systems.
The World Health Organization has warned that in addition to the COVID-19 pandemic, West Africa is facing new outbreaks of Marburg and Ebola viral haemorrhagic fevers, which risk huge tensions in ill-equipped health systems.
The new outbreaks show the multitude of challenges governments face in parallel with the pandemic, Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s regional director for Africa, said on Thursday.
“We are especially concerned about West Africa,” Moeti said. “Fighting multiple outbreaks is a complex challenge.”
Côte d’Ivoire began vaccinating health workers against Ebola in the commercial capital of Abidjan on Monday after the deadly virus case 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 traveled from neighboring Guinea.
Last week, Guinea’s health authorities confirmed a death for Marburg, similar to Ebola.
Africa faces more outbreaks of infectious diseases each year than any other region, Moeti said.
He added that the health systems in West Africa in particular are weaker than in other parts of the continent, although the WHO did not give any specific figures on staffing or hospital bed occupancy rates. throughout the region.
Meanwhile, WHO data show that West Africa recorded the highest number of deaths from COVID-19 last month since the pandemic began and cases are rising in Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Nigeria, all three recently affected by other outbreaks.
Separately, Côte d’Ivoire has identified an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu near the commercial capital of Abidjan and has taken steps to curb its spread, the government said on Thursday.
“Facing three outbreaks at once, for any health system, is a very difficult situation,” Mamadou Samba, Ivory Coast’s director general of health, told the same press conference.
Samba did not directly answer a question about how many of the dozens of people riding a bus with the girl traveling to Côte d’Ivoire from neighboring Guinea had been identified.