ZAMBIA: Government to screen DRC refugees for Ebola

The Zambian health authorities are to screen refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for the Ebola virus, news reports said on Wednesday. Health ministry spokesman Ben Chirwa told the 'Times of Zambia' that a medical team had been dispatched to Kaputa on the border where some 11,000 DRC refugees are camped, following the outbreak of suspected haemorrhagic fever in the northeastern Watsa area of the DRC. An aid worker in Zambia said the health ministry's announcement smacked of "paranoia". A WHO official told IRIN that there was as yet no confirmation the Watsa outbreak was Ebola: "Only in the laboratory can you see what this is. It could be many things like Lasa fever, Rift Valley fever." He said clinical samples from five patients in Watsa have been sent to South Africa for testing with the results expected this week. He added that the lack of a secondary spread of the disease to family members or health workers was unlike an Ebola outbreak. Meanwhile, UNHCR plans to move the remaining refugees in Kaputa to a new site further south at Mwange over the next two weeks. Already 6,400 refugees have been transferred to Mwange, near Mporokoso, which has the capacity to accommodate 35,000 people with access to chlorinated water supplies. The opening of farming plots is also under consideration should the DRC conflict prevent an early return for the refugees. An estimated 10,000 "self-settled" refugees are still scattered in villages around Kaputa, Moshi and Chiengi. But they are starting to come forward and register with UNHCR for resettlement. "Definitely in human terms things are under control," UNHCR spokesman Dominik Bartsch told IRIN.