In a prominent front-page article in its August 5 edition, L’Osservatore Romano highlighted the spread of the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“The despair on the faces of Congolese mothers reveals the human cost of Ebola,” Guglielmo Gallone reported. “It is a human cost that goes beyond the grim figures cited by the World Health Organization (WHO), which reports 3,605 confirmed cases and 1,587 deaths, a fatality rate of 44 percent.”
Gallone added that “Having begun in May in Ituri province, the Ebola outbreak has spread to four other provinces; the rate of transmission is described by the WHO [World Health Organization] as ‘exceptional,’ necessitating an urgent strengthening of the health response.”