Ebola Outbreak Update: Should We Be Worried About A Global Pandemic? - Episode #149

Welcome to Tav's Headline News Reviews! 

The Ebola outbreak has sparked a global threat with a rare strain and no vaccine, leaving the world in a state of panic. The Ebola virus is a severe and often deadly illness that can spread quickly, causing widespread fear and devastation. In this video, we will delve into the latest developments on the Ebola outbreak, exploring the rare strain that has emerged and the challenges of finding a vaccine. We will also discuss the global response to the outbreak, including the efforts of health organizations and governments to contain the spread of the virus and protect vulnerable populations. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Thank you for joining us on Sunday, May the 24th, 2026. It's like we're dealing with another virus. Apparently, the OLA virus is fast moving in Africa and is now raising international threat alarms. The World Health Organization has upgraded the outbreak risk inside the Democratic Republic of Congo as extremely high at a national level, and they're trying to prevent the outbreak from spreading to other countries near the Congo. The virus that's involved is Ebola, a rare strain of Ebola, with no approved vaccine or specific treatment currently available in the world. Confront cases are rising, suspected cases are surging, and the health officials warn that the outbreak may have been spreading quietly for weeks before it was discovered. The key question now is can health officials contain the outbreak before it spreads further across other countries? Although this is not COVID, Ebola is dangerous, especially this rare strain. There is no vaccine, there's no treatment for it. Reuters, as you can see here on the screen, right now, on May the 22nd, was reporting that the World Health Organization raised the risk of Ebola strain to very high at national level in Congo. This is the Democratic Republic of Congo. Experimental drug mainly used for the Ebola contacts, the World Health Authority or organization says. Right now, 177 suspected deaths and almost 750 suspected cases, according to the World Health Organization. So the outbreak seems to be centered in the Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo. As I said, the Reuters also was reporting that 82 confirmed cases, seven confirmed deaths, with around 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths. The figures are much higher than what are being reported. Let's face it, if we're at uh 750 suspected cases, based on the information that we can get out of Africa or in the Congo, um, we're probably at 4,000, 3,000 cases now. It's it's spreading like wildfire there. Uganda, next door, the country of Uganda, has already reported two confirmed cases imported from Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, definitely connected with the outbreak in Congo. Uh World Health Organization says the outbreak is serious enough that it is now declared it a public health emergency internationally. And there's concerns now spreading to every country. They're taking proactive measures like the United States that are now banning anybody coming into the United States from that region. So countries are responding and taking action, though it's not COVID, it is a very dangerous virus. Okay, so why is this Ebola strain different? The outbreak is caused by a rare strain of Ebola, not familiar in any way to the common one, which is Ebola Zaire strain. That matters because some Ebola vaccines and tools that were previously used to combat the Xaire strain does not work. There is no vaccine for this particular strain that we're dealing with right now in the Congo. World Health Organization and other health agencies are looking at emergency response tools, including surveillance, isolation, contact tracing, safe burials, everything they can do, including experimental medications as an option. Reuters reports that experimental antiviral vaccines is being considered for certain high-risk people under a strict protocol. This makes the spread of this strain very urgent for officials because there is no proven vaccine or effective vaccine. You may be asking yourself, how fast is this thing spreading, this this Ebola? Well, I got an article on the screen on you now to The Guardian, and it says, and I got it highlighted there, the cases have tripled in a week. It's like I said, whatever numbers we're getting from Africa in the Congo, it it could be 3,000, 4,000 cases. The Guardians are reporting in the article that suspected cases have tripled in in about a week, from 246 cases to 750 deaths have also rise sharply from 65 deaths to 177 deaths suspected. The World Health Organization has warned that the outbreak is spreading rapidly. So their their tone has already changed in the press conferences that now they're taking there's a more urgent response, more urgent communication to to the world that the um virus is has jumped, and then they making excuses like maybe the reason why the numbers are going up is because we now have better detection and reporting. I I think that thing's been spreading for weeks, if not months. In fact, there was a report from Reuters that recorded that the World Health Organization believes that the virus may have been spreading for at least three to two months before full-scale uh detection, that they even be became aware of this virus was was in in play. So uh the concerns is that the outbreak maybe started maybe started weeks ago, months ago, and had been circulating within the population before they detected it. So, what's the global risk and the basically what should we be watching and uh be worried about? Well, here's an article from the CDC or a bulletin from the CDC regarding Ebola in the United States. Now, we just went through COVID. President Trump was in office his first term when when COVID broke out. He's now in office now. I'm hoping that the world learned some lessons from the from the COVID outbreak. Definitely the United States is taking action. If you remember and uh Trump shut down uh any travel from China into the United States, other countries followed much later, and he felt he was late at the decision, and this time he's taken no chances, he's already issued orders to prevent anybody coming from that area to get into the United States, and I'll give you an example in just a few minutes. Uh so let's take a look at this bulletin from the CDC. The first one is there's no cases, the outbreak in the United States, so that the they're claiming that the risk to the general public in the United States is very low. As of May 22nd, the Democratic Republic of Pavel and Uganda ministries reporting that there's been some new cases, a total of 744 suspected cases, 83 confirmed cases, and more than 150 suspected deaths. I'm telling you these numbers are low. Uh they're much higher, I believe. I think they're in the 3,000. If if this thing's been spreading for three months or two months or several weeks, there's a lot more cases than 744. Uh the numbers include two confirmed cases, including one death in Uganda and people who traveled from no further spread, uh, has been reported according to the CDC. And then down here at the bottom on May 18th, the CDC, the Department of Homeland Security, and other appropriate federal agencies took proactive action uh to prevent anybody from that area uh to entering the United States. In fact, there was a uh flight, commercial flight, uh French Air France, that apparently it was a passenger on that plane headed inbound into the United States that had come from that region. The United States authorities turned that plane around and was diverted to Canada, where I live, in uh Montreal. And then that person was assessed and then sent back to uh that's where they uh they live. So the United States is already taking action. The World Health Organization says that the global risk remains low. That's what they're saying, but the tone is different. They've already increased the threat level to too high. As you can see, it it is it there seems to be an urgency now in their press conferences. If you listen to them, they're saying that the the risk in Central Africa is very high. The CDC says that, you know, although there's no new cases or no cases, sorry, in the United States, they are watching the situation very carefully to ensure that there is no outbreak in the United States. And in Europe, um, they're saying that the risk in Europe remains very low, but has activated EU health task force protocols to deal with the Ebola virus. The key point, uh, this is a serious outbreak as far as I'm concerned. Uh we just went through COVID, we don't need another one. Uh, I hope people learned how to deal with this of COVID. A lot of mistakes were made, this information sent out, and here we are again. That the media seems to be looking for something like this, because they're all over it. That's all they I mean, it's all over when the cruise ship had that virus on that cruise ship that we talked about. I did an article or an episode just a few episodes ago regarding the virus, um, the Andes virus that was on the cruise ship. They spent days, weeks covering that, and now they're all over this one now. Ebola spreads mainly through direct contact, unlike COVID. COVID uh it didn't take the distance didn't have to be that close to for you to transmit it to another person. Uh this one is direct contact with the body fluids. That's not through airborne spread, just sort of talking, but actual body fluids that you come in contact with an individual that's infected. So let's talk a little bit about the international response. International support is now increasing. You can see here on these articles here. Here's here's the one from the World Health Organization determined a public health emergency of international concern. That means everybody in the world should be concerned with this, as it is spreading. And there is even uh Associated Press was reporting that the UN has released emergency funding while the United States has pledged support for treatment and support in finding a vaccine as soon as possible. Reuters reports that the UK, uh United Kingdom, has committed $26 million to help contain the outbreak in the Congo. Um, and the obviously the European health authorities have also initiated or activated their response teams. I've heard that some of these teams have now gone down to the Congo to help with uh with people that have been infected, or also to do surveillance on the population. Um and Africa's uh DDC has also called for urgent regional coordination because the risk of cross-bording border infection and spread is quite high. Uh, so the major challenge right now is a speed. Officials must identify the cases, isolate those patients just like they did with COVID, and they need to do it now. And then they gotta make sure that the people, the health care nurses, orderlies, that they're protected, and they need to make sure they're protected just like they were during COVID. But in the latter part of COVID, it seemed like it took us it took us a little while to get up to speed as far as making sure that personal protection equipment was supplied to the um health employees, nurses, doctors, uh, everybody in the hospital and uh health centers. So that seems to be now the uh the alert is now ringing and everybody is starting to react because the cases keep going up. The spread keeps spreading, and there is no vaccine, there's no treatment for it. That makes it dangerous. The things that we should be watching for in the next few days regarding this Ebola break outbreak. The next few days, the biggest things that we should be watching out for is number one, whether suspected cases continue to rise. That number. Now, my concern is I don't know if we're getting accurate members out of Central Africa. That's that's the problem. Number two is whether more cases appear outside of the Congo. So if we start seeing out of the Democratic Republic of Congo, we start seeing it in South Africa, other countries that is we should be watching out for that, because that that will be very concerning. Uh the other thing is whether Uganda keeps the outbreak contained in their country and the Congo, uh the Democratic Republic of Congo keeps it contained in their area, uh, that will be good. If they don't, then like I said, if it starts spreading to other countries, that would be problematic. Um, whether health workers, number four on my list, whether health workers can safely reach infected areas, that's important. All these response teams that are being gauged or activated, they need to get to those areas. I do have an article on the screen right now from Africa's CDC, and it outlines what they're doing and what they've discovered, and is dated May the 15th, but those numbers obviously have changed, and but they're but they're definitely active. Um, number five on my list is uh whether communities cooperate with testing, so and isolate people that are sick and their safe burials, because from what I understand, from what I'm reading, people uh the the remains of the individual has to be uh cremated to prevent spread. This is a very serious, almost a very dangerous virus, um, especially the strain that there is now, because there is no cure for it. Health authority officials are warning that the world uh not to underestimate the outbreak. Well, that's why I'm doing this episode, and that's why I'm telling you, I hope we learned lessons from COVID, because it's it could get out of hand. And I don't think Canada here, we're taking it as serious as we should be taking it, given what we went through in COVID. The last thing we need is another lockdown with all the economic uncertainty we have in our country. So I don't know why we're not preventing people for coming into our country from that area. Why did the air front plane have to land in Rotreal and why were we engaged in trying to get the person back to their home country? I know we gotta help everybody, but we get the number one thing, number one responsibility of any government, whether it's Canada, the United States, England, is to protect its people. Because what we went through with COVID is just we don't want to go through that again, and we should have we should have improved our protocols, our processes, and make sure that if we have everything in place so that we're not buying masks and and protective equipment from China or from any other country. We should already have it in stock on hand and it should be part of our process. Even one missed contact could restart transmission in another location. So if if we get one here in Canada, it's gonna spread like wildfire if we don't prevent it A from getting in and B isolating that individual right away. Like for example, the people that came back from that cruise ship, that instead of allowing them to go home to self-isolate, we should have had in a designated health facility isolated for the the amount of time required to make sure that that virus doesn't spread. We shouldn't be allowing people to go home when we are dealing with a dangerous virus. United States, they sent them to a special quarantined health facility and they stayed there until the the pine line war to make sure that the virus was gone. The outbreak is still containable right now, but the window of containment is quickly narrowing and maybe vanishing. So my final thoughts and my final takeaway is that the Ebola outbreak is now one of the most urgent health stories in the world. The media is covering it, it's all over TV, uh, it's everywhere. I'm really concerned that from what I'm hearing on the news and reading, that it almost seems like we didn't learn anything from COVID. And we're not paying attention and we're not being proactive. And we need to be proactive. It's this is not the time to be politically correct like we did when the initial phase of the COVID outbreak started back in 2020. We need to lock it down fast and protect our people and our citizens. The danger is highest if the the Democratic Republic of Congo right now is serious and and i it it could easily spread regionally, and still, although the threat global globally is low, it can that could change in a heartbeat. Uh but one thing's for sure, this rare strain of Ebola, the lack of approved vaccines, the rapid rise in suspected cases, as I demonstrated. I'm not telling you those numbers are wrong. They're higher. Uh make this a major test for not just for Congo and Uganda. It makes it a major test globally for the United States, Canada, European Union, England. It's a major test. Did we learn anything? And are they acting now? Don't wait for this thing to be at your doorstep to start taking action. Take action now to prevent it from happening and spreading in your country and protect our people. The next phase will determine whether this remains a regional emergency in Africa or it starts to become much wider across the world. Let me know your comments and thoughts regarding this. I'm very concerned about it. I'm watching it. As you know, I always reply to all everyone's comments and let me know what you think and what your concerns are. Hey everyone, if you enjoy these news summaries that I put out every week and you find them informative, please be sure to subscribe and give me a thumbs up. It really helps the channel. You can also catch all my episodes on my podcast up here. And you can find my podcast and YouTube Music. Thanks for watching. Be safe, and we'll see you on the next one.