Description of the situation
13 December 2001
Disease Outbreak Reported
As of 13 December The Gabon Ministry of Health has reported 14 suspected cases (2 laboratory confirmed) including 10 deaths.(see previous report).
A team from MSF Belgium and EPICENTRE (both partners in the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network) arrived in Libreville this morning to join international experts already in the country.
The International Response Team met with the Ministry of Health in Libreville on Tuesday 11 December and assisted the Ministry of Health in completing the organizational and coordination arrangements for the response. This includes a Comité Politique Interministériel, Comité de Coordination Generale, Comité Provincial and Comité de Coordination Technique et Scientifique de Lutte with technical sub-committees for epidemiology and surveillance, case management, community sanitation and hygiene, health education, logistics and research. Technical meetings with the Gabonese health and military personnel were held on 12 December to organize the teams, their programme of work and the tools (e.g. epidemiologic forms and databases) and materials needed in the field.
The joint Gabonese-International team is leaving for the field after making the necessary logistic preparations to travel to the outbreak site to establish an isolation unit and implement a surveillance system.