Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo seems to go from one
Speaker 2: crisis to another. It's faced natural disasters and is in
Speaker 2: an ongoing war, but now it's facing an outbreak of abola,
Speaker 2: a deadly virus that strikes fear across the world. It's
Speaker 2: one that the World Health Organization has already declared an emergency.
Speaker 3: I'm deeply concerned about the scale and the speed of
Speaker 3: the epidemic.
Speaker 4: Cases have been.
Speaker 3: Reported in urban areas, including Kampala and the city of
Speaker 3: Goma in the DRC. Business have been reported among health workers,
Speaker 3: indicating healthcare associated transmission. There is significant population movement in
Speaker 3: the area now.
Speaker 2: The DRC has faced many abola outbreaks over the years,
Speaker 2: helping it to build expertise in how to manage the virus.
Speaker 2: But with cases spreading in a conflict zone against a
Speaker 2: backdrop of shrinking international aid budgets, could this outbreak be
Speaker 2: a harder one to control? And citizens in Eastern Congo
Speaker 2: are having to face yet another disaster.
Speaker 5: This disease that has appeared in our community is causing
Speaker 5: great concern. At this point, we do not really know
Speaker 5: what kind of disease it is every day people are
Speaker 5: dying in Rumpara, and this has been happening for about
Speaker 5: a week. In a single day we bury two, three
Speaker 5: or even more people.
Speaker 2: On today's Next Africa Podcast, we're looking at this latest
Speaker 2: outbreak of a bowl up in the DRC, how cuts
Speaker 2: to international aid, including USAID, have affected the response, and
Speaker 2: how serious things are on the ground. Right now, I'm
Speaker 2: Jennifer Zabasaja, and this is the Next Africa Podcast, bringing
Speaker 2: you one story each week from the continent, driving the
Speaker 2: future of global growth with the context only Bloomberg can provide.
Speaker 2: So joining me today is our senior healthcare reporter that
Speaker 2: is Janis q and also Caitlin Brady. She is the
Speaker 2: Democratic Republic of Congo country director for the NGO, the
Speaker 2: Danish Refugee Council, and she's currently in Goman near the
Speaker 2: Rwandan border right now. Janis, maybe we just start with you,
Speaker 2: because this outbreak is fast moving. Things are changing quite rapidly.
Speaker 2: Maybe you can give us a lay of the land.
Speaker 2: What do we know about where things stand at this
Speaker 2: current moment.
Speaker 1: Jen, As you say, things are moving very quickly. At
Speaker 1: the moment, we are seeing five hundred and forty suspected
Speaker 1: cases and one hundred and thirty one deaths, but researchers
Speaker 1: are concerned that the estimate of the true number of
Speaker 1: infections is probably already larger than eight hundred cases, just
Speaker 1: as a point of reference. We only had the notification
Speaker 1: of this come through let on Thursday, so less than
Speaker 1: a week ago we had the notification come through. And
Speaker 1: one of the initial big concerns was that there were
Speaker 1: healthcare workers that were infected. And the reason that is
Speaker 1: a big concern is that they're obviously working with a
Speaker 1: whole lot of people. And so when you at the
Speaker 1: point of health care workers being infected, people have come
Speaker 1: into facilities where the infection has lightly occurred, and then
Speaker 1: those healthcare workers have worked with other people, and if
Speaker 1: that had been going on for some time before anyone
Speaker 1: realized that it was ebola, the options on contact tracing
Speaker 1: become far more complicated. It's also concerning that they've been travelers.
Speaker 1: We've seen that the first dath in Uganda was from
Speaker 1: someone who'd come over the border from Congo, and when
Speaker 1: you have infection spreading amongst people traveling, that also raises concerns.
Speaker 2: Caitlin, maybe we go to you as well, because this
Speaker 2: outbreak is really concentrated in the DRC. You're on the
Speaker 2: ground there, can you give us the sense of what
Speaker 2: you're seeing, what you've been hearing over the past few
Speaker 2: days and maybe even weeks.
Speaker 4: I'm in Goma, as Janis was saying, we have had
Speaker 4: travelers come here from Aturi and unfortunately, one of them
Speaker 4: did fall ill while in Goma and has been hospitalized
Speaker 4: and the local health workers are doing contract tracing for
Speaker 4: that individual, so that obviously complicates matters. We also have
Speaker 4: two positive cases in Boutembo. North Kivu has been the
Speaker 4: site of several epidemics. This is the seventeenth epidemic and
Speaker 4: response that the DORC has dealt with, and the most
Speaker 4: ferocious response was the tenth in North Kivu. Itturi is
Speaker 4: the epicenter of this crisis. It Touri is the province
Speaker 4: in the far northeast on the border with Uganda and
Speaker 4: South Sudan, and unfortunately where this started is It's a
Speaker 4: mining town in a territory that is heavily conflict affected,
Speaker 4: an area that potentially doesn't have a lo a lot
Speaker 4: of humanitarian access, that isn't very stable, and potentially where
Speaker 4: education and exposure to modern medicine is potentially less so
Speaker 4: for at least two weeks, it would seem there were
Speaker 4: some cases, some deaths before the alert was raised, and
Speaker 4: as Johnas said, when health workers started dying. What we've
Speaker 4: seen now is a very rapid response by the government
Speaker 4: and also by the health agencies like MSF and medic
Speaker 4: for example, who are doing the very best to do
Speaker 4: the contact tracing and to identify among those contacts who
Speaker 4: shows preliminary symptoms make sure those people are isolating. Obviously,
Speaker 4: as we've seen in the past, this is a very
Speaker 4: scary thing for the community to face. They don't necessarily
Speaker 4: understand abola. This is a very closed These are closed communities,
Speaker 4: and in particular in this area, they haven't dealt with
Speaker 4: abola before. If this was North Kivu, everybody would be
Speaker 4: sort of okay, we know how to do this, we
Speaker 4: know how to do this. But it's not. It's a
Speaker 4: toury and it's Jugu and its conflict affected. The access
Speaker 4: is very very poor in this area, or at least
Speaker 4: it has been. Just last week, last Thursday, we were
Speaker 4: celebrating the announcement of a ceasefire by one of the
Speaker 4: arm groups who voluntarily declared a unilateral ceasefire starting Friday morning. Excellent,
Speaker 4: excellent news. Unfortunately, at the same time we had the
Speaker 4: news of the outbreak and we had to shift gears
Speaker 4: immediately into a public health response.
Speaker 2: What has that looked like, Caitlin, Because as you mentioned,
Speaker 2: this country has seen quite a few outbreaks in the past,
Speaker 2: but this region, I mean you speak to how this
Speaker 2: is a bit new for a lot of this community.
Speaker 2: What does it look like differently than previous outbreaks that
Speaker 2: you've been on the ground for.
Speaker 4: So I've been on the ground to the West Africa
Speaker 4: bowler crisis in Myberia and also for the twenty eighteen
Speaker 4: to twenty twenty tenth the Boler response here. Actually, there
Speaker 4: are a lot of similarities in that initially we heard
Speaker 4: rumors that people thought this was blackmatic, they thought that
Speaker 4: family was cursed. We've also already started hearing harmful rumors
Speaker 4: about the origin of this outbreak, that it was malicious.
Speaker 4: For example, Doing risk communications and community engagement and in
Speaker 4: particular countering some of these rumors is absolutely critical, and
Speaker 4: we need to educate people about how they can protect themselves.
Speaker 4: These are some of the most vulnerable people in the world.
Speaker 4: Utturi hosts almost a million IDPs and Jugu has a
Speaker 4: lot of IDP camps. So these are camps where internally
Speaker 4: displaced persons, people who have fled conflict take refuge from violence,
Speaker 4: some of which host over one hundred thousand people. These
Speaker 4: are literally some of the most vulnerable people in the world,
Speaker 4: and they've faced violence and conflict and displacement and now
Speaker 4: they could face a bold So it's a terrible situation
Speaker 4: and we really need to act quickly and along with
Speaker 4: the nuts and bolts of the response, so the isolation
Speaker 4: of suspected cases, care of confirmed cases, the contact tracing,
Speaker 4: along with all of that, we really need to bring
Speaker 4: the community along with us. And I know that the
Speaker 4: WHO has already deployed some anthropologists to support the risk
Speaker 4: communications and community engagement work that the entire community will
Speaker 4: be doing to ensure that people do come to health facilities,
Speaker 4: that they do follow the advice, that they do call
Speaker 4: the hotline that the Ministry of Health has set up
Speaker 4: to report, Hey, I'm not feeling well and these are
Speaker 4: my symptoms. Could it be a bola? But they need
Speaker 4: to trust the health care system and they need to
Speaker 4: trust the responders and they've had a really hard time.
Speaker 4: This area has been conflict affected since twenty eighteen quite intensively,
Speaker 4: and then obviously previously during the first and second Congose wars.
Speaker 4: So it's a vulnerable area and we're very worried about
Speaker 4: the situation.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Janie, maybe you can come in with some of
Speaker 2: the facts as well. Caitlin was speaking to what people
Speaker 2: may or may not think about what is currently going on.
Speaker 2: A lot of the discussion over the past few days
Speaker 2: has been about just how different this strain of ebola
Speaker 2: is than previous ones. Can you just talk about how
Speaker 2: this bundebugio strain what we need to know about it
Speaker 2: right now?
Speaker 1: Congo is very experienced actually with Eberta art breaks. This
Speaker 1: is their seventeenth Eberta artbreak, but only two previous artbreaks
Speaker 1: have been this specific strain that we see now, and
Speaker 1: already this artbreak has exceeded in terms of case numbers
Speaker 1: and deaths the previous two outbreaks of that strain. That
Speaker 1: is a difference. The Zaia strain is formal researched and
Speaker 1: it already has an approv vaccine in therapeutics, which this
Speaker 1: strain does not. So that is a concern because even
Speaker 1: if tools can be deployed successfully, which as Caitlin's already
Speaker 1: described as challenging and of itself, whether or not they're
Speaker 1: actually going to be effective against this particular strain is
Speaker 1: not yet known, and so that is concerning. The other
Speaker 1: big concern rarely is just how extensive it may already be.
Speaker 1: We got reports of the weekend that we were also
Speaker 1: seeing ebola cases in Kinshasa. Now Conshassa is very far away.
Speaker 1: That may be that we've had transmission, but it could
Speaker 1: also be that there was actually outbursts or hot spots
Speaker 1: in a lot of different places, and that is even
Speaker 1: more concerning in many ways because it shows that it's
Speaker 1: probably been going on undetected for a very long time.
Speaker 1: And the reason that could be is that the initial
Speaker 1: symptoms are quite confusing. They could be symptoms of diseases
Speaker 1: like malaria or typhoid, and that is deeply concerning the
Speaker 1: outbreak of twenty fourteen to twenty sixteen, which really devastated
Speaker 1: West Africa, that inflicted more than twenty eight thousand people.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Stick with us. We're going to take a short break
Speaker 2: and when we come back we'll have more on the
Speaker 2: international response to this latest outbreak. We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: Welcome back today on the podcast, we're looking at the
Speaker 2: evolving situation in the DRC as the who have declared
Speaker 2: the abola outbreak a public emergency of international concern. I
Speaker 2: have jenis Q and Caitlin Brady still with me. Can
Speaker 2: we talk about the people who are maybe coming in
Speaker 2: to support and I'm talking about the international community, and
Speaker 2: in particular, there's been quite a bit of discussion over
Speaker 2: the past few days about USAID and potentially what impacts
Speaker 2: that could or couldn't have had on detecting earlier cases. Jennie,
Speaker 2: I want to start with you and then Caitlin I'll
Speaker 2: get your opinion as well. Where does that fit into
Speaker 2: this conversation, Jennie.
Speaker 1: It's difficult to pinpoint exactly how much of USAID funds
Speaker 1: exactly would have improved surveillance, but in very bold breaststrokes,
Speaker 1: funding internationally and not just from America, actually from many
Speaker 1: other partners fail for Cliff last year, and that no
Speaker 1: doubt has an impact because clinics close virologists who were
Speaker 1: looking at samples and doing trials, etc. A lot of
Speaker 1: that shuts down when there is no funding. There is
Speaker 1: an obvious repercussion to that. Again, how to pinpoint that
Speaker 1: to this specific outbreak is a little bit difficult, but
Speaker 1: bi logic of the fact that there is less surveillance
Speaker 1: generally and less research being done on possible vaccines and
Speaker 1: other therapeutics makes it difficult to say that it hasn't
Speaker 1: had an impact. It has had an impact. The response
Speaker 1: has been swift. As soon as the DRC identified that
Speaker 1: this was ebola, the WHO, Africa CDC have sent people in.
Speaker 1: We have had a lot of other organizations like Doctors
Speaker 1: with Our Borders, etc. Who have said that they've deployed people.
Speaker 1: The US has offered funding specifically for this outbreak. The
Speaker 1: USCDC is also involved at this point. So there has
Speaker 1: been a response. But in the bigger broad breast strokes,
Speaker 1: when you've got the US pulling out of the WHO,
Speaker 1: for example, which is what they did last year, and
Speaker 1: there are other countries that have been talking about it
Speaker 1: as well, it really does leave the WHO in a
Speaker 1: weakened position and that definitely has ramifications. The WHO said
Speaker 1: that they've got quite a bit of funding I think
Speaker 1: about ninety percent for the current year, but that ten
Speaker 1: percent is going to be incredibly difficult to Marshal. And
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that they called this global health
Speaker 1: emergency so early was in an effort to martial resources.
Speaker 1: That was really what's the main objective of that at
Speaker 1: that moment in time was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we heard the Director General talking about that. Caitlyn,
Speaker 2: can you speak to how it's that the international response
Speaker 2: and also the receding of some of the aid from
Speaker 2: the international community has manifested in your work and what
Speaker 2: you've been seeing.
Speaker 4: As honest as saying, we're a lot dinner on the
Speaker 4: ground than we used to be. And that's not just
Speaker 4: the wisdowal of USAID funding. It's also frankly reductions of
Speaker 4: funding coming from European capitals as well as priority shift
Speaker 4: to security. And while one might be sympathetic with their interests,
Speaker 4: the result is that there's just a lot less funding
Speaker 4: for humanitarian assistance. In terms of our work, yet we've
Speaker 4: definitely contracted and so DRC would have had large scale
Speaker 4: programming supporting disc persons funded by USAID, which we no
Speaker 4: longer have, and normally we would have been working in
Speaker 4: some of these camps in water and sanitation and hygiene,
Speaker 4: so would other people, because there's hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 4: people in these camps and there's a ton of need.
Speaker 4: Having said that these camps, the access was bad. We
Speaker 4: didn't have the funding and so we weren't present on
Speaker 4: the ground, for example, for the past couple months, and
Speaker 4: so people are living in really unsanitary conditions, cheek by jowl,
Speaker 4: with shelters that are collapsing. They don't have latrines. What
Speaker 4: latrens that may have had are full, and so you
Speaker 4: will see open defecation and really just horrific sanitary conditions.
Speaker 4: The basic advice that we give to people about wash
Speaker 4: your hands, wash your arms frequently, they just can't do that.
Speaker 4: They don't have the means to do that. So if
Speaker 4: a bull of rye in these camps, it's going to
Speaker 4: be a really horrific situation. Coming back to USAID, the
Speaker 4: US government and the Department of State has announced the
Speaker 4: mobilization of funding and that's fantastic and right now myself,
Speaker 4: my colleagues here at the Danish Refugee Council, and all
Speaker 4: of my colleagues in the UNIMMY and the NGOs are
Speaker 4: looking for resources to respond. It's really critical that we
Speaker 4: move fast. This is a situation where waiting a week
Speaker 4: is not acceptable.
Speaker 2: Caitlin, maybe i'll give you the final word. As you're
Speaker 2: on the front line. What is it that you are
Speaker 2: watching closely outside of the humanitarian aspect of it.
Speaker 4: Maybe hard to put my humanitarian self aside, but what
Speaker 4: we're in addition to the deployment of vaccines, and I
Speaker 4: presume testing of vaccines against this strain to see if
Speaker 4: they're at all effective, we're looking at movements of population
Speaker 4: and the spread. We obviously need to keep our staff safe.
Speaker 4: That's our first propriority so that they can continue to work,
Speaker 4: but we need to move very fast either. Again, some
Speaker 4: of the most vulnerable people on the planet and they
Speaker 4: aren't facing a very deadly virus, so they need our help.
Speaker 2: Which is why we have to say thank you to
Speaker 2: you Caitlin and your team, Kaitlin Brady and also jenis
Speaker 2: Q you as well for the work that you are
Speaker 2: doing to bring the message of what is happening currently
Speaker 2: with this outbreak. Kaitlyn Brady and jenis Q, thank you
Speaker 2: guys THO so much. You can read all of our
Speaker 2: coverage right now on the Abola outbreak on Bloomberg platforms.
Speaker 2: Here's some of the other stories we've been following across
Speaker 2: the region. This week, South African trade authorities proposed wide
Speaker 2: ranging increases in tariffs on seal imports in an attempt
Speaker 2: to provide safeguards as a quote unprecedented emergency batters the
Speaker 2: nation's industry, and the Arab Bank for Economic Development in
Speaker 2: Africa told investors last week that Senegal is in arrears
Speaker 2: with the lender, according to people familiar with the matter,
Speaker 2: adding to signs of mounting financial strain on the government.
Speaker 2: You can follow these stories across Bloomberg, including the Next
Speaker 2: African Newsletter. Will put a link to that in the
Speaker 2: show notes. This program was produced by Adrian Bradley and
Speaker 2: tiwa Adebayo. Don't forget to follow and review the show
Speaker 2: wherever you usually get your podcasts. But for now, I'm
Speaker 2: Jennifer z Abasaja. Thanks as always for listening.