A Twitter user says “It’s all a lie; there is no case of Ebola.”
Completely false; there is a new outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) even as the country still fights a previous outbreak.
Full text
A Twitter user claims that there is no case of Ebola.
“ WE JUST SCANNED ALL NECESSARY FILES AND CONFIRMED THAT THERE IS NO CASE OF #EBOLA, IT’S ALL A LIE. WE WILL KEEP EXPOSING THESE LIARS”.
The tweet has been retweeted over 1000 times and has garnered over 9000 likes since it was posted on June 1, 2020.
Verification
A WHO news release on June 1, 2020, says that the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo had announced the outbreak of a new Ebola virus in the northwestern part of DRC, specifically in the Wangata health zone, Mbandaka and in the Equateur province. This will be the 11th outbreak of the Ebola virus in the country since its discovery in 1976.
The official Twitter account for the World Health Organization (WHO) in DR Congo reported that the agency is holding meetings to work out modalities on how to handle the case. The tweet suggests that training of local vaccinators would commence on Friday to help mitigate the crisis.
DRC was already battling an Ebola virus outbreak which began in 2018. WHO says that outbreak is now in its final phase, in the eastern part of the country. The virus has claimed over 2243 lives, as of May 25, 2020. This outbreak was the 10th outbreak in North Kivu and Ituri provinces of the DRC.
According to a news release, the Ministry of Health on May 14 began a 42-day countdown to declare the end of the outbreak(for a country to be declared Ebola-free, there needs to be a 42-day no new case report).
Not only is there a new wave of Ebola virus outbreak in a different part of the DRC but also a host of other health issues as well. Alongside the new outbreak, the country is currently dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, an outbreak of what the WHO calls “the world’s measles outbreak”, mpox, poliomyelitis and cholera.
“It’s happening at a challenging time, but WHO has worked over two years with health authorities, Africa CDC, and other partners to strengthen national capacity to respond to outbreaks,” says Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.
The Account behind the Claim
The account which tweeted the false claim, as noted by a few comments under the tweet, is a ‘parody account’ (fake account) which was created in April. Strangely, it has a lot of followers, 5190, but follows no one.
The bio of the account, “We are Anonymous, We are legion , We do not forgive , we do not forget , expect us , PARODY ACCOUNT”, which conforms with Twitter policy for parody accounts to indicate with words such as ‘parody’, ‘fake’, ‘fan’ as a giveaway that it is not a trustworthy account and source of information.
In addition, since its creation, the account has tweeted six times with three of them claiming to have evidence of the source of wrong deeds. The other tweets are duplicated – another telltale characteristic of parody accounts.
A bit about Ebola
The Ebola virus was first identified in 1976 in Central Africa with the first outbreak recorded in DRC in a village near the Ebola River. The second outbreak occurred in South Sudan. The virus later hit West Africa around 2014-2019, spreading rapidly to become a global pandemic within months of the outbreak. The Ebola outbreak was a global health scare with high fatalities in countries like Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, and DRC.
In West Africa, the Ebola virus was first reported in 2014, recording 11,315 deaths by January 2016. This figure, according to the WHO, is just an estimate due to difficulty in collecting data in the country.
Conclusion
Contrary to the claim, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is facing its newest and 11th wave of Ebola outbreak. This was announced by the government of the DRC on June 1 this year.
