Perfect storm: Did refugees fleeing Congo conflict bring Ebola with them?

Saturday, August 11 2012 at 16:03
The Ebola outbreak in western Uganda over the past two weeks reveals how violent conflict, porous borders and poor healthcare infrastructure have created the perfect storm to make the region particularly susceptible to the deadly disease.


The latest outbreak has deepened the puzzle for scientists who are wondering why in recent years the epicentre of the haemorrhagic fever appears to have shifted from the Congo and Central African Republic to Uganda.


The entire region is now on high alert with concern rising that the virus could spread to Kenya and Tanzania given the frequent movement of people between the three countries.


Two suspected cases are under investigation in Tanzania in Kagera Region near the border with Uganda, and another two suspected cases in Kenya—one in Central and the other in Western Province. None of the cases have been confirmed to be Ebola.

The latest outbreak in Uganda has been linked an influx of an estimated 20,000 refugees from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo fleeing fighting in North Kivu province. But a direct cause-and-effect link between the entry of refugees and the outbreak of the disease has not been established.??


Still, porous borders are a feature of the entire East African region, particularly when violent conflict pushes large numbers of people across borders.
Apart from the eastern DRC-Uganda border, other borders that have recently experienced the pressure of conflict are the Uganda-South Sudan border; the Kenya-Somalia border; and the Tanzania-Burundi border.


But it is not just conflict that drives people across borders; the search for better economic opportunities, too, has driven people to neighbouring countries in the EAC, particularly with the inauguration of the Common Market Protocol.

Even though scientists cannot put a finger on the next country that is likely to be hit, they consider Kenya and Tanzania, and to a smaller extent, Rwanda and Burundi, to be out of the Ebola virus’s geographical distribution.


According to Medecins Sans Frontiers’ Paul Roddy, despite the three instances in Uganda, claiming nearly 300 lives in total, the greater East African region largely remains free of Ebola because the virus’s concentration is in the Central Africa region.


Like Marburg, Ebola is a virus that is passed on from and/or by primates to humans, but the puzzle that scientists are trying to unravel is why especially Uganda, South Sudan and DR Congo, are the most susceptible to Ebola outbreaks.


Dr Roddy said that recent research shows that the geographical distribution of Ebola stretches across the African continent from Uganda to Gabon, and from Sudan all the way to Angola.


However, “evidence from individual cases shows that the virus is in circulation from Central African Republic.”


In essence, other regions in the greater East Africa are not prone to the Ebola virus because they lie out of its geographical loop despite the fact that humans in those regions also interact with the forests.
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