Africa’s top public health agency said yesterday that there was a confirmed Ebola outbreak in Congo’s Ituri province, with 65 deaths out of 246 suspected cases so far.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement that it was convening an urgent meeting with Congo, Uganda, South Sudan and global partners to reinforce cross-border surveillance, preparedness and response efforts.
It said the deaths and suspected cases had been reported mainly in the Mongwalu and Rwampara health zones, while four deaths had been reported among laboratory-confirmed cases. Suspected cases have also been reported in Bunia, the provincial capital.
The agency said initial findings suggested the presence of a non-Zaire strain of the virus, with sequencing ongoing to further characterise it.
Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the Congolese virologist who co-discovered Ebola and heads the National Institute for Biomedical Research in Kinshasa, told Reuters that all but one of Congo’s 16 previous outbreaks had been caused by the Zaire strain.
The identification of a different variant will complicate the response, he said, as existing treatments and vaccines were developed against the Zaire strain.
“Africa CDC is concerned about the risk of further spread due to the urban context of Bunia and Rwampara” as well as “intense population movement” and mobility related to mining in the affected areas, which are close to Uganda and South Sudan, the agency added.
Uganda said the case was imported from Congo and that no local case had been confirmed.
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