17 People dies of Ebola virus in DRC

Two cases of the Ebola virus disease have been confirmed by a lab report in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to a source from the Ministry of Health on Tuesday. 

The two cases were confirmed by the laboratory of the National Institute of Biomedical Research in Equateur Province, northwestern DRC, said the source. 

According to Reuters, at least 17 people in northwest Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have died from ebola, the health ministry said, describing the fresh outbreak as a “public health emergency with international impact.” 

Twenty-one cases of fever with haemorrhagic indications and 17 deaths” have been recorded in Equateur province, it said, citing a notification to the ministry as of May 3.

It is the DRC’s ninth known outbreak of the deadly disease since 1976.

It is the ninth time ebola has been recorded in the DRC, whose eastern ebola river gave the deadly virus its name when it was discovered there in the 1970s.

The latest incidence of the disease comes less than a year after the central African country’s last outbreak, in which eight people were infected of whom four died.

Ebola is believed to be spread over long distances by bats, which can host the virus without dying, as it infects other animals it shares trees with such as monkeys. It often spreads to humans via infected bushmeat.

In West Africa, an ebola outbreak that ended two years ago killed more than 11,300 people and infected some 28,600 as it rolled through Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia before finally being contained.

Congo’s vast, remote geography gives it an advantage, as outbreaks are often localised and relatively easy to isolate.