Disease surveillance operations are expanding beyond the borders of the Democratic Republic of Congo as the country battles an Ebola outbreak of unprecedented scale.
Official government figures released Tuesday confirm over 7,700 cases and more than 3,700 deaths linked to the epidemic across the nation.
In response to the escalating crisis, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is scaling up field interventions at displacement camps and along primary transport corridors, including key points along the Congo River.
At the Bende-Bende port in Kinshasa, IOM personnel perform routine health screenings, logging passenger information on health forms and checking body temperatures. Response teams at the transit hub handle roughly 1,000 health screenings daily.
“If a passenger meets the definition of a suspected or alert case, they are immediately referred to the sampling unit to determine whether it’s a case of Ebola , another epidemic disease, or cholera,” said Dr. Primous Godjedo, a health security specialist at the IOM.
To prevent regional contagion, the IOM stated it is working “closely” with border nations, including Uganda, South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, and the Central African Republic, to bolster national preparedness and mitigate the threat of cross-border transmission.
