International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies - IFRC’s Post

Transcript

We've seen them parks growing over the past year and in a new way. And so it's important to understand that impacts has been going on both in places where it's endemic by which I mean places that have had a long history with MBOX outbreaks. And then also you may remember two years ago in the summer of 2022 we had a big global outbreak of Empok's for the first time. And so that all of those outbreaks have been continuing at a lower level than we saw in 2022, but still it kind of concerning way and what is new since. Kind of September of last year was this new type of impax called Clayed 1B that we've seen emerge in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, which is not an area that has had impacts before. It's not an area where we expect to see this virus. And this spread of that, of this new type of impax into new countries over the past couple of weeks is really what prompted the declaration of a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization. And we can expect to continue to see new cases pop out. Popping up in new countries. And I think it's important to understand that the declaration of a public health emergency of international concern is a call to attention. It is a call for us globally to pay attention, to focus our resources and our efforts on stopping this. And both at the place where it is currently found, which is primarily not just DRC, but neighboring countries like Burundi and but also for us all to be on alert that our health systems are on alert, that we have testing available, that we have support available because we can expect. This to be spreading into new countries and it's important that we are able to react appropriately and quickly when we do find those cases. In addition to really devoting the vast majority of our resources globally to stopping this at its source. By which I mean devoting significant resources including vaccines, including specific treatments, including resources, including financial investment in those places that are experiencing community transmission, by which I mean person to person multiple chains, multiple generations of of transmission. Between humans and this is really important because if we don't stop it at its source, one, we will have unnecessary suffering and death in those communities which are tend to be more vulnerable communities. But two, we will not stop it around the world unless we stop it where it's coming from. And so it's really important both for folks in those affected areas, but also for the rest of the world that we really invest the resources that we have globally. And that means things like sharing vaccines to make sure that we are not stockpiling vaccines in, to put it bluntly, Rich. Countries and while failing to deliver those vaccines and those medicines that can save lives and prevent transmission and prevent new cases in the places where the risk is much higher. Despite that, we know that very few to no doses of vaccine have been made available to respond in these countries. Despite having been responding for almost a year to this new type of impacts in Eastern DRC. We are forcing these countries to try to tackle this enormous public health threat. Um, without a full toolbox. And that is deeply shameful for us as a global community. And this call for global action through the declaration of a public health emergency of international concern should be a wake up call for us all that we need to be devoting the resources that we have collectively, not country by country, not, you know, divided by wealth, not divided by race, not divided by religion, the resources that we have collectively at our disposable as humans on this planet and sending them to the. Places where they are most needed. Volunteers and teams have been working for for many months on this. This is not a new emergency for us. We saw it sort of coming on slowly. What volunteers do is really critical to bring that piece right down to the communities around things like case detection. So actually finding cases and telling people, hey look, you might have them parks and you need to seek treatment of doing things like education so that people understand what types of. Behaviors and activities might put me at risk for impax that I can understand. What are the symptoms that I should be aware of and what should I do if I have Impacs? Recognizing that not everyone in those places that are currently significantly affected has access to perfect treatment or perfect isolation or the supports that they need to do the quote UN quote right thing. The key message for me right now is that we all have a role to play in encouraging the appropriate use of these global tools that we have like vaccines. But then we also have an individual role to play in reducing the feeling of panic. This is not COVID. This is a very different disease with a very different mode of transmission. It requires physical contact or very close face to face contact with someone who has the the virus. And so we can all take a deep breath and be part of the solution in terms of bringing down the temperature and making sure that we created an environment in which people are feeling supported if they do have MPGS rather than scared or stigmatized.