The agency issued a rare statement saying health officials in the East African country aren’t being transparent.
On Saturday, the World Health Organization issued an unusual news alert: It essentially chastised the government of Tanzania for not responding to requests for information about possible Ebola cases within its borders.
Amid an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, WHO said that it learned — through unofficial channels — about three recent cases in Tanzania. The country took four days to respond to WHO’s initial ask, eventually denying that it has identified any Ebola and declining to share its lab data.
“Despite several requests, WHO did not receive further details of any of these cases from Tanzanian authorities,” the press release stated.
Ebola is a “notifiable disease,” according to the International Health Regulations, an international treaty that governs global health emergency responses. Under the IHR, WHO member countries are supposed to report cases of notifiable diseases to WHO within 24 hours of identifying them. Countries are also obliged to share details of their investigations, and even lab tests with WHO for validation.
Tanzania is a WHO member country, but it didn’t follow protocol, the organization says.
If Ebola did make its way to Tanzania, it wouldn’t be entirely surprising. The outbreak in nearby DRC has lasted more than a year, killed more than 2,000 people, and already spread to Uganda. That’s why the WHO is already urging countries in the region to get ready for potential outbreaks.
But the fact that WHO has gone public about its concern over Tanzania has Ebola cases is significant. “It shows how seriously the WHO is taking the possibility of Ebola cases in Tanzania, and how much of a priority they are placing on full transparency about the identification of cases,” Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told Vox.
A WHO spokesperson said the agency “is mandated by the IHR to inform member states of issues of concern. It is also committed, via its constitution, to help countries respond to health emergencies.” But without more information from Tanzania, doing so will be difficult.
There’s another reason to be concerned: One of the major reasons West Africa’s 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic became the largest in history was that the virus turned up in countries that had never been affected by Ebola. Tanzania would be another country that’s never battled Ebola. If it has been hiding Ebola cases, this could be the start of another challenging, deadly outbreak.
In the WHO’s news alert, the agency described a series of attempts at trying to get information from Tanzania about possible Ebola cases, and the Tanzanian health authorities’ repeated unwillingness to comply.
According to the WHO spokesperson, as of Monday, the situation hadn’t improved. “Despite several requests, WHO has so far not received the information required to fully assess the potential risk posed by this event,” they said.
It’s possible there are no confirmed cases in Tanzania — but there’s no way to know that for sure without them handing over their lab tests to WHO for confirmation. It’s also possible they’re hiding cases, potentially for fear of travel and trade repercussions. Either way, “it’s the ambiguity that’s a very serious matter internationally,” said Inglesby.
Author: Julia Belluz
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