00:00Let's talk to Eva Turo, the public health expert and emergency coordinator at the International Federation of Red Cross and
00:07Red Crescent Societies.
00:09Eva, welcome. Give us a sit-rep, if you were. I mean, how do you see, what are your teams
00:14telling you on the Ebola outbreak in the DRC?
00:19Hello, thank you so much for the invitation. The situation is extremely concerning.
00:24As we speak, like, the outbreaks are still expanding, and today the UN describes its progression as exponential.
00:32But what is really concerning is that the transmission is continuing across a very large and super complex geographical area.
00:39So this is not absolutely the moment to lower our guard.
00:43We need to intensify the response, identify the cases as early as possible, and crucially, work with communities and to
00:50put the communities at the center.
00:52As today, we passed, like, more than 5,000 cases.
00:55Why are people attacking health workers?
01:00We need to understand that every epidemic creates a lot of fear, creates a lot of rumors.
01:05We saw this in previous epidemics, like COVID-19, for example.
01:09So we cannot, we don't want to blame the communities for not understanding.
01:13What we need is to keep continuing doing the work that we do, for example, in the Red Cross, like,
01:19to be inside the communities to explain them.
01:21Because when the information is not there, the rumors take this gap.
01:26And this is when then our response becomes more challenging.
01:30I wonder, I mean, what lessons from COVID might be applicable in this scenario in the DRC?
01:36I mean, when you look at Uganda, for example, and its successful response to Ebola there.
01:45Uganda, they detected the cases very early.
01:48So early detection is completely key.
01:51For us, we started with already a month of delay.
01:54So that created a lot of challenges.
01:56But if something we learn from COVID is, like, that rumors can spread faster than any disease.
02:02And the misinformation, like, it's extremely concerning.
02:06So, again, we need to understand that everything that we put for the communities, they need to own this.
02:14We need to make sure that the communities are understanding what is happening and that we put them in the
02:19center.
02:20Is there any sense of vaccine hesitancy in this story?
02:26For now, what we are hearing is other type of concerns, more on different perceptions on what this disease is,
02:34and some of confusion.
02:36Like, for now, we are going to follow what the government and the police show recommends.
02:42And for now, we are centering, like, our volunteers, again, to make sure that the communities are prepared to face
02:48the next phase of this outbreak.
02:51Ever, good to talk to you.
02:52And every good wish with your plans there.
02:54Ever Turo, the public health expert at International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
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