The Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Congo, and South Sudan have resolved to strengthen their cross-border preparedness to curb the spread of, and ultimately end, the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus and other health threats.

The countries made the agreement in Bangui, C.A.R., on Wednesday, after a special briefing on the ongoing Ebola disease outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus.

At the event, supported by the World Health Organisation, Africa Region, the countries agreed on key actions to strengthen coordination, preparedness and response across borders and protect communities from health threats.

The regional director for WHO Africa Region, Mohamed Jamaica, stated that, “Viruses do not recognise borders. Where risk is shared, our response must be shared too. Preparedness saves lives. As WHO, our vision is to help Africa move from responding to outbreaks to anticipating, preventing and preparing.”

The minister of state for primary healthcare in Uganda, Charles Ayume, said, “We need to strengthen South-South collaboration in our response efforts and have all countries bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo on board. Uganda is ready to share lessons from our response, support human resource capacity-building and facilitate training.”

Secretary general for public health hygiene and social welfare for DR Congo, Body Ilonga Bompoko, stated that, “The health of our population can no longer be viewed in terms of national borders, but must be built within a shared space of solidarity and collective action. We need a coordinated, regional and structural response.”

The C.A.R. Health minister, Pierre Somse, said, “it is very important that we develop a strategy to engage our communities. We need to incorporate the issue of funeral rites into our preparations so that our communities understand that how their practices align with the demands of the struggle.”

The undersecretary for the ministry of health in South Sudan, Francis Oromo, stated, “The strategy is: Let us be prepared before the disease. If we only respond, then it’s going to be a disaster. Chasing a virus is not good. It’s better we attack the virus before it comes to the country.”

The chief of staff, ministry of health, Republic of the Congo, Donatien Moukassa, noted that, “Early, swift and robust political commitment will, of course, be one of the keys to an effective response to the Ebola virus disease.”

The regional emergency director for the WHO Africa Region, Marie-Roseline Belizaire, during her briefing, disclosed that although females of working age are more affected by the outbreak, males die more from the disease, while children below five years old record the highest death rate.

Mrs Belizaire said, “The demography matters also. Who are the most infected? The most affected groups are the working aged adults from 18 to 49-years-old. Women represent 53 percent of reported cases. Most painful, children under five, have the highest case fatality ratio and around 60 percent.

“While females are the most affected in this outbreak, males are dying more in this outbreak. Females are dying at 35.2 percent and males at 40.8 percent. The very young carry the heaviest fatality. Children under five are dying at 69.5 percent.”

She also said that the disease is being aided by pre-existing humanitarian crises such as lack of access to clean water, healthcare, food scarcity, amongst others.

“This outbreak is not happening in isolation. In the 58 Ebola affected health zones, Ebola is coluding with a pre-existing humanitarian crises. Humanitarian coverage in the zones is dangerously low, often below 40 percent for water, those population don’t have access to clean water. Access to health is very low. Food security, in this case, we have a very high level of malnutrition, that means, roughly, 1.5 million people don’t reach food assistance, and 1.7 million people are without essential non-Ebola health services.”

Noting the improvement by the affected countries in curbing the disease, she said more work needed to be done to meet set targets.

“We need to be also conscious, the daily follow-up is still below our 95 per cent target, our contact-to-case ratio is still too low. We are improving, we’re not yet there but we need to be there. Diagonistic capacity has extended substantially. Twenty-one laboratories are now active, from one to 21, with five more decentralised labs coming online, and a further 10 to 20 in planning. We have reached a daily capacity of 3,000 tests.”