Ebola: Catholic Priest Infected As UNICEF Seeks Way Out For Children

Ebola Virus Disease, Touches Catholic Priest (Photo File)

Ebola Virus Disease Infects Catholic Priest, UNICEF Takes Step To Prevent Children Cases

The deadly Ebola Virus has struck again, infecting a Catholic priest in the Mbandaka town of Democratc Rebublic Congo, medical sources have revealed.

“We have quarantined a priest from the diocese of Mbandaka-Bikoro who tested positive” for the Ebola virus, a medical source told Nigeria News on condition of anonymity.

Religious authorities could not be immediately contacted. DRC health officials launched a small, targeted vaccination campaign this week to help rein in the latest Ebola outbreak in the country, which so far has claimed 27 lives.

Similarly, Kinshasa announced on May 8 that there had been cases of the notorious haemorrhagic fever in a remote northwestern district called Bikoro. Last Thursday, the first case was reported in a city — Mbandaka, a transport hub located on the Congo River.

According to a World Health Organization count, 58 cases have been identified since alert of the disease early April. It was not possible to establish whether the priest was among them.

Meanwhile, UNICEF said it was committed to helping schools and children in the fight against the spread of the virus.

The charity’s DRC representative Gianfranco Rotigliano told Nigeria News, if a student becomes infected, he or she would be promptly taken care of.

Gianfranco who visited schools in Bikoro, Rotigliano noted that schoolchildren now know the basic rules including washing their hands regularly, and not shaking hands.

Ebola spreads through contact with bodily fluids and is both highly infectious and extremely lethal.

Nigeria News reports that In Mbandaka, several families have installed buckets of water and soap at the entrance of the house for hand-washing to contain the disease.

“I asked my children to be careful not to shake hands with people and stop playing with their friends in games that would cause contact between them,” Claude, a father of several children, told Nigeria News.