The second-largest Ebola outbreak in history has spread to a city in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as health experts worry whether stocks of an experimental vaccine will run out.
Butembo, with more than one million residents, is now reporting cases of the deadly haemorrhagic fever. That complicates Ebola containment work already challenged by rebel attacks elsewhere in the DRC that have made tracking the virus almost impossible in some isolated villages.
"We are very concerned by the epidemiological situation in the Butembo area," said John Johnson, project co-ordinator with Doctors Without Borders. New cases are increasing quickly in Butembo's eastern suburbs and outlying, isolated districts, the charity said.
The outbreak declared on August 1 is now second only to the devastating West Africa outbreak that killed more than 11,300 people between 2014 and 2016. There are currently 471 Ebola cases, of which 423 are confirmed, including 225 confirmed deaths, the DRC's health ministry said on Thursday.
Without the teams that vaccinated more than 41,000 people so far, this outbreak could have already seen more than 10,000 Ebola cases, the ministry said.
This is by far the largest use of the promising but still-experimental Ebola vaccine, which is owned by Merck. The company keeps a stockpile of 300,000 doses, and preparing them takes months.
"We are extremely concerned about the size of the vaccine stockpile," the World Health Organisation's emergencies director, Peter Salama said.
Health workers received a dose in a "ring vaccination" approach, but in some cases all residents of hard-to-reach communities were offered it. The prospect of mass vaccination in a major city like Butembo has raised concerns. Dr Salama called this approach "extremely impractical".
This Ebola outbreak is like no other, with attacks by rebel groups halting containment work for days at a time. Some wary locals resisted vaccinations or safe burials of Ebola victims as health workers battle misinformation in a region that has never encountered the virus before.
A "fringe population" has regularly destroyed medical equipment and attacked workers, Health Minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga said last week.
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Read more:
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Thousands of people have been organised by Red Cross societies and others to go house-to-house dispelling rumours and checking on possible contacts of victims.
Fatoumata Nafo-Traore, Africa regional director for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, joined an awareness campaign in the outbreak's epicentre, Beni, this week.
The head of one family thanked her for the face-to-face contact, saying he did not even have a radio and did not understand what was happening. "Ignorance is the enemy," another resident said.
Given the years of conflict in eastern DRC, it is essential that households trust why the health workers are there, Dr Nafo-Traore said.
Although she called the insecurity "very worrying", she said that with new tools at hand, including vaccines, "there is great hope".
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Install an air filter in your home.
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MATCH INFO
Day 2 at Mount Maunganui
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
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In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
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