Kinshasa, Congo — The 1-year-old daughter of the man who died of Ebola in Congo’s major city of Goma this week has the disease, the health ministry said Thursday, while Rwanda closed its border with Congo over the virus outbreak that now enters its second year. The man died on Wednesday after spending several days at home with his large family while showing symptoms.
Rwanda closes border with Congo amid rising Ebola fears, new case
This is the first transmission of Ebola inside Goma, a city of more than 2 million people on the Rwandan border, a scenario that health experts have long feared. The painstaking work of finding, tracking and vaccinating people who had contact with the man – and the contacts of those contacts – has begun.This outbreak has killed more than 1,800 people, nearly a third of them children. It is now the second-deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, and last month the World Health Organization declared it a rare global emergency.
Rwanda’s state minister for foreign affairs, Olivier Nduhungirehe, confirmed the border closure, a day after WHO officials praised African nations for keeping their borders open. The border closure applies to everyone except Congolese citizens leaving Rwanda, the Reuters news service reported.Congo’s presidency swiftly condemned Rwanda’s decision.Reuters quoted the Congolese president’s office as saying authorities there “deplore this decision, which runs counter to the advice of the WHO” on fighting the virus.Last week, Saudi Arabia stopped issuing visas to people from Congo while citing the Ebola outbreak, shortly before the annual hajj pilgrimage there this month.WHO has recommended against travel restrictions amid the outbreak but says the risk of regional spread is “very high.” Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan have long begun vaccinating health workers. In June, three people died in Uganda before their family members were taken back to Congo for treatment and Ugandan officials declared the country free of the disease.The death on Wednesday in Goma “in such a dense population center underscores the very real risk of further disease transmission, perhaps beyond the country’s borders, and the very urgent need” for more global support, United Nations agencies said in a joint statement marking a year of the outbreak.The man, in his 40s, was a miner returning from an area of northeastern Ituri province, Mongwalu, where no Ebola cases in this outbreak have been recorded, WHO said. He was exposed to the virus along the roughly 300-mile-long route from Komanda to Goma as he took motor taxis over a number of days through the densely populated region at the heart of the outbreak.