Congo's main airport reopens after being closed due to Ebola
The main airport in Congo has reopened.
Written by: Ayman Ragab
The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo announced on Tuesday the reopening Main airport In Ituri province, which is the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak, following a ten-day lockdown for public safety reasons.
Ebola in Congo
The Ministry of Transport explained in an official statement that the authorities concluded that “the conditions are now ripe for a gradual and safe resumption of air travel,” following an assessment of the mechanisms for monitoring the spread of the disease, according to what was reported by the French Press Agency.
For his part, Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba indicated that the authorities had previously been forced to take precautionary measures in order to protect travelers and limit the spread of infection.
Ebola outbreak in Congo
The country is experiencing a widespread outbreak of Ebola, a highly contagious hemorrhagic fever disease suspected of having killed at least 246 people in both the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
On May 23, Congolese authorities suspended all commercial flights to and from Bunia airport, the capital of the conflict-ridden eastern Ituri province, allowing only medical and humanitarian flights to arrive.
As the Ebola outbreak intensifies within the Democratic Republic of Congo with a rapidly rising number of confirmed cases, more complex dimensions of the crisis are emerging, not only in terms of the spread of the disease, but also in terms of the groups most affected by it.
Women are most at risk as the Ebola outbreak escalates.
As the health system continues to face increasing pressure, women stand at the heart of the epidemic scene, as they are the most vulnerable to infection and the most present on the lines of care within homes and health facilities, in a pattern that is repeated with almost every outbreak, amid a clear lack of means of prevention and a widening scope of danger.
Health workers warn that women face an increased risk from the virus outbreak, especially with the rising number of confirmed cases, in conditions that make transmission easier within affected communities.
In this context, data indicates that women accounted for two-thirds of cases in the recent outbreak, due to their traditional roles in caring for patients within families, which increases their chances of being exposed to infection.
As UN Women explained in a previous statement, women have been overrepresented in Ebola deaths over the past five decades, noting that this pattern was clearly repeated during the 2018-2019 outbreak in Congo, where women and girls accounted for about two-thirds of the recorded cases.
