EPIDEMIC
WHO fears DRC's Ebola outbreak began months ago
The potential timeline alarms the World Health Organisation as the hemorrhagic fever can spread quickly
Kinshasa — Cases of hemorrhagic fever were reported in an area of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) hit by an Ebola epidemic as far back as December. The first deaths were reported in January, a spokesman for the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in the capital, Kinshasa, on Thursday. The health ministry said on Tuesday that at least 17 people had died in an area of northwestern DRC where health officials have now confirmed an outbreak of Ebola, but did not give a time frame. Two cases have been confirmed as Ebola by a laboratory in Kinshasa. A period as long as five months since the first infection would be alarming, since it gave the virus a head start in infecting lots of people before action was taken to contain it. This is the ninth time Ebola has been recorded in the vast, forested central African nation since it was first identified near the eastern Ebola river in the 1970s. It comes less than a year after an outbreak killed eight people in the DRC’s remote northeaste...
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