Brussels, 19/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 19 July, the European Commission announced that the European Medical Corps is to be deployed to help fight yellow fever in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The same day the Commission was due to deploy a mobile laboratory and five laboratory technicians to the DRC, where 1,798 cases of yellow fever have been detected since March.
This new crisis management instrument, with which the European Union has been equipped as part of the civil protection system, was launched in February 2016 to respond rapidly to health emergencies both inside and outside the EU (EUROPE 11490).
The medical team and laboratories will help accelerate the process of confirming suspected cases, improving the analysis, diagnosis, and response to the epidemic. The laboratory technicians come from Germany and Italy, two countries that European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides “thanks” in a press release.
The team will be based in Kahemba District Hospital in Kwango province (neighbouring Angola) for an initial period of two months, the Commission states. The mobile laboratory is provided by Germany via the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine.
The deployment of this team responds to a request from the World Health Organisation via the EU's civil protection mechanism. The European Medical Corps also took action last May to help fight yellow fever in Angola (EUROPE 11550). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)