Guinea has now declared the end of the Marburg virus disease outbreak having recorded no new cases over the past 42 days. Marburg, which is in the same family as Ebola, is transmitted to people from fruit bats and spreads among humans through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, surfaces and materials. There are no vaccines or antiviral treatments approved to treat the virus.
Guinea has now declared the end of the Marburg virus disease outbreak having recorded no new cases over the past 42 days. Marburg, which is in the same family as Ebola, is transmitted to people from fruit bats and spreads among humans through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, surfaces and materials.
There are no vaccines or antiviral treatments approved to treat the virus. Ebola vaccination began late in October in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s North Kivu Province where a case was confirmed on 8 October.
More than 80 million children have now been vaccinated with the novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) in six countries in Africa, the world’s first region to rollout of the vaccine. During August to October, Nigeria, Benin, Congo, Liberia, Niger and Sierra Leone rolled out the vaccine.
Weekly COVID-19 cases in Africa fell by more than 20%—the sharpest seven-day decline in two months—as the third wave pandemic tapers off.
However, the rate of deceleration is slower than the previous waves owing to the impact of more transmissible variants. A new assessment by the WHO shows that only 14.2% – or one in seven – COVID-19 infections are being detected in Africa.
In Senegal, the Mercy Ships screening team is currently travelling throughout the remote regions of the country meeting patients who will receive surgery when our hospital ships arrive next year.
Senegal’s Ministry of Health launched an ambitious initiative and head start to our 2022 field service. They wanted to schedule eye surgeries for all the patients whose appointments were delayed in 2020 due to COVID-19. Mercy Ships volunteer Missy Brown flew to Senegal to help, assisting local surgeons to perform 111 surgeries already.
These will compliment the surgeries to be undertaken on board when the Africa Mercy and Global Mercy hospital ships sail into Dakar in 2022.
Double the Impact You Make in Someone’s Life
Any donation you make before 31 December 2021 will be doubled thanks to a kind family in country Victoria, who are matching all donations made to Mercy Ships programs in Africa and the Pacific Islands.
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