Zaire Lifts Quarantine On Ebola-Stricken Region -- Order Held Ineffective; Death Toll Rising
KINSHASA, Zaire - The government yesterday lifted the quarantine of the region affected by the killer Ebola virus, allowing free travel between the region and the rest of Zaire for the first time in 10 days.
The move was not an indication the epidemic is over - the death toll jumped yesterday to 97 - rather, an admission that the quarantine was a misguided effort to control the illness.
"It was a bad misunderstanding," said Dr. Abdou Moudi of the World Health Organization, describing the attempt to lock up the entire Bandundu region that includes the epidemic's center of Kikwit.
The government imposed the quarantine May 10 after Ebola was blamed for a string of deaths in Kikwit, a city of 600,000 people about 250 miles east of the capital, Kinshasa. Moudi said people were now free to leave Kikwit.
Health experts said the quarantine was largely ineffective because soldiers manning the main roadblock on the highway to Kinshasa could easily be bribed. In addition, they said anyone already struck by the virus would be too weak to make their way out of the quarantined region.
Thousands of people waiting at a roadblock at the edge of the quarantined zone broke into applause as officials announced they would be free to leave after quick medical checks. Doctors and nurses examined them briefly for symptoms of Ebola, such as fever or body aches, before waving them through.
Many had been stuck at the roadblock for 10 days with little
food or water and said their robust appearance should have been proof they were not ill.
Doctors prevented six people from passing into the neighboring Kinshasa region because they had fevers, but there was no indication they were suffering from Ebola.
Moudi said they probably had malaria. Its early symptoms are similar to those of Ebola.
Moudi said the World Health Organization had never intended the government to quarantine an entire section of the country. Instead, it recommended that hospitals with Ebola victims put them in special wards and that cities with Ebola cases be sealed.
Health officials also have urged the Zairian government to use radio and television to educate people about Ebola, a mysterious virus first identified in 1976 and rarely seen since then. Its origin is unknown, but doctors know it is spread through body fluids. There is no vaccine, and few infected people survive.
Another nun doing missionary work in the Kikwit area apparently has contracted the disease. Annelvira Ossoli developed a fever on Tuesday, then began to show other symptoms, said Arturo Bellini, a priest in Bergamo, Italy, where her order is based.
Four other members of the Sisters of Poverelle order have died of Ebola. Bellini said Ossoli "cared for all the nuns who were sick."
The government and health officials have feared an outbreak of the virus in Kinshasa, a crowded city of about 6 million people where the disease could quickly spread. Four hospitals in the city have established special wards to handle suspected Ebola cases.
Moudi said there was no reason to fear Ebola carriers would filter into Kinshasa because those at the roadblock had been there long enough for the disease's incubation period to end and symptoms to appear.
That did not satisfy Maurice Fideki, a Kinshasa newspaper vendor who said he believed anyone who arrived from Kikwit should be put in jail.
"Otherwise they could come and kill us all because we live too closely here," he said.