Ebola outbreak poses high regional risk, WHO believes

GENEVA/GOMA: An Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is probably spread over tens of kilometres and poses a high regional risk given its proximity to borders, a World Health Organisation (WHO) official said yesterday.

Four people have tested positive for Ebola in and around Mangina, a town of about 60,000 people in North Kivu province, 100km from the Ugandan border, the health ministry said. Another 20 people died from unidentified haemorrhagic fevers in the area, mostly in the second half of July.

Just last week, a previous outbreak on the other side of the Central African country was declared over after killing 33 people.

‘‘It would appear that the risk, as we can surmise for DRC, is high. For the region it’s high given the proximity to borders, particularly Uganda,’’ said WHO’s emergency response chief, Peter Salama.

This is the DRC’s 10th outbreak since 1976, when the virus was discovered near the Ebola River in the north.

The kind of Ebola this time has been confirmed as the Zaire strain, which the Merck vaccine protects against. Still, the outbreak poses new challenges. Eastern Congo is a tinderbox of conflicts over land and ethnicity stoked by decades of onoff war, and this could hamper efforts to contain the virus.

An international delegation including officials from the United Nations, the World Bank and the WHO is in Beni, 30km from Mangina. — Reuters