Nurses working with the WHO prepare to administer an experimental
vaccine following an Ebola outbreak in Mbandaka on May 21, 2018. DRC
Congo on August 1, Ebola outbreak announced fresh Ebola outbreak. AFP
PHOTO | JUNIOR KANNAH
DR Congo on Wednesday reported an outbreak of Ebola in its
conflict-torn east, killing 20 people, barely a week after it declared
the end to an epidemic in the northwest of the vast country.
The
eastern province of North Kivu notified the health ministry of "26
cases of fever with haemorrhagic indications, of which 20 were fatal,"
Health Minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga said in a statement.
The
outbreak has occurred in the Beni region of North Kivu — the stronghold
of a notorious Ugandan-linked Islamist militia called the Allied
Democratic Forces (ADF).
"At this point, there is no
indication that these two epidemics, which are more than 2,500
kilometres (1,500 miles) apart, are connected," he said.
Six
samples taken from hospitalised patients arrived in Kinshasa on Tuesday
for analysis by the National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB),
he said.
Of the six, four tested positive for Ebola virus disease.
Twelve health ministry experts will arrive in Beni on Thursday, Ilunga added.
On
July 24, Ilunga himself had declared the end to a 10-week outbreak that
struck the northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo, claiming 33 lives
and prompting international concern.
Cases emerged in
the northwestern city of Mbandaka, a city and transport hub on the Congo
River with a population of more than a million.
For
many experts, that ranked among worst-case scenarios — contagious
disease in an urban setting is far harder to contain than in the
countryside, especially in a poor country with a fragile health system.
The
epidemic was fought with help from the World Health Organization (WHO),
which rushed emergency aid, including protective gear, and unlocked $2
million in fast-track financing.
The WHO provided a
vaccine called rVSV-ZEBOV which had proved to be highly effective in
trials during the West African pandemic, when it was tested as the
outbreak was waning. The unlicensed vaccine was given to frontline
workers in the DRC.
The latest outbreak is the 10th in
the DRC since 1976, when it was discovered in the north of the country,
then called Zaire, and named after a river nearby.
One
of the world's most feared diseases, Ebola is a virus-caused
haemorrhagic fever that in extreme cases causes fatal bleeding from
internal organs, the mouth, eyes or ears.
It has a
natural reservoir in a species of tropical African fruit bats, from
which it is believed to leap to humans who kill and butcher the animals
for food.
Transmission among humans then typically
spreads through close contact with the blood, body fluids, secretions or
organs of someone who is sick with Ebola or has recently died.
The average fatality rate is around 50 percent, varying from 25 percent to 90 percent, according to the WHO.
In
the worst outbreak of Ebola, the disease struck the West African states
of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2013-15, killing more than
11,300 people.
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