00:00But why does Ebola continue to emerge in outbreaks despite decades of research?
00:06And what does this say about the environment in regions like the DRC?
00:10Because this is not the first time they've witnessed Ebola.
00:16You're absolutely right.
00:18Out of the total, you know, 60 or 70 outbreaks, minor or major or medium size,
00:23been reported since its first identification back in 1976.
00:30Around 17 different outbreaks have been recorded only in the DRC.
00:34And DRC has been particularly hit for several reasons.
00:37And one of the major reason is that the bats population in the DRC is quite dense.
00:43And the overall health infrastructure is very poor.
00:45So each time an outbreak emerge, it mainly emerged from bats to non-human primates,
00:51which are monkeys of all different kinds.
00:53And then when people go into the forest, they try to hunt those animals.
00:56And then they bring it into the market for eating purposes.
00:59So bushmeat is the major source of spread of the Ebola viruses each time an outbreak emerge.
01:06And when particularly we talk about the DRC, there's a lot of other factors.
01:11Those are medical-related, health-related, and also political-related factors.
01:15Those are making DRC as a hotspot for Ebola viruses.
01:18And one of the factors, as we all know, is that the whole region, especially the Aturi region,
01:23is not only a mine-dense region, but is also quite porous border.
01:28And that's the reason, you know, once that outbreak is identified in DRC,
01:32it's spread quite quickly to other neighboring countries.
01:35For example, the spillover of the events into Uganda is in Kampala region,
01:41which is around 1,200 kilometers from the Aturi.
01:45Still, the virus managed to spread over to other again.
01:48And now Rwanda is also one of the other target area.
01:51So a lot of factors are really precipitating this outbreak to spread.
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