§ Dr. TongeTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development what action her Department has taken in response to the recent suspected outbreak of ebola virus in(a) the Congo and (b) Gabon. [99296]
§ Clare ShortMy Department has been monitoring the situation in the Congo very closely and is ready to provide assistance if this is deemed appropriate. We provided £150,000 through Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) during the last ebola outbreak in the Congo in February 2002. The current death toll from the latest outbreak is 75, but WHO believes the situation is now under control. The Government of Congo has made available $68,000 to deploy medical teams, and the national authorities are being supported by a team of 10 WHO epidemiologists, medical anthropologists and social mobilisation experts. The Congolese Red Cross are working on raising public health awareness and social mobilisation and an appeal was recently launched. WHO has established isolation wards which have helped to contain the disease: most of the people who became infected have now unfortunately died. My 733W Department will continue to monitor the situation in close collaboration with WHO, the Red Cross and MSF.
My Department has not received any reports that the recent ebola outbreak has spread to neighbouring Gabon. The Gabonese authorities have responded swiftly to this latest outbreak of the virus by closing the Gabon-Congo border in the north-east of the country and has sent a team of experts from the Health Ministry and the Medical Research International Centre in Franceville to the two areas, near the border with Congo, where there was an outbreak last year. Guidelines have been issued to locals asking them not to touch dead animals in the forest, or those with an unusual behaviour (primates are often carriers of the ebola virus), as well as reporting any suspected cases of ebola to the authorities.