NewsDesk @bactiman63

The chief doctor of the Kasaï-Oriental Provincial Health Division, Nestor Tshiteku said about the measles outbreak in the province Tuesday:

“Today, we are at 2,538 cases including 20 deaths. There are many more children from 6 to 59 months who are affected. But what is true is that all 19 health zones are affected by the epidemic ,” he said.

DRC map
Democratic Republic of the Congo/CIA

The head of the provincial health division also adds that his teams do not have the means to organize the response to this disease.

“ We are seeing that even where there has been a response, cases are still coming back. It was normally necessary to cover all the 10 health zones of the city but unfortunately due to lack of means we organized it in only 5 zones. What makes the epidemic persist. This is why we reach out to our technical and financial partners so that we can manage to vaccinate our children who are affected by this disease. Not only our technical and financial partners but that our government can help us ,” he continued.

It should be noted that the measles epidemic continues to spread in the province of Kasaï-Oriental. The health authorities are working to bring the disease under control, which has already been declared in all the health zones of the region. However, the means of response are lacking. Hence this call from the chief medical officer of the provincial health division to encourage the partners and the government to intervene so that a solution can be found.

Nationally, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has reported  71,327 suspected cases and 1,001 measles related deaths through June 19 this year.