DRC reports deadliest Ebola outbreak to date
Congo’s health ministry says the epidemic is the worst the country’s history with 319 confirmed and probable cases
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the most severe in the country’s history with 319 confirmed and probable cases, the health ministry said late on Friday. The haemorrhagic fever is believed to have killed 198 people in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, where attacks by armed groups and community resistance to health officials have complicated the response. The DRC has suffered 10 Ebola outbreaks since the virus was discovered near the eponymous Ebola River in 1976. “The current epidemic is the worst in the history of DRC,” Jessica Ilunga, a spokesperson for the ministry, told Reuters. With more than 300 cases, the epidemic also ranks as third-worst in the history of the continent, following the 2013-2016 outbreak in West Africa where more than 28,000 cases were confirmed and an outbreak in Uganda in 2000 involving 425 cases. World Health Organisation (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Thursday that security represented the primary c...
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