Tag Archives: Butembo

WHO sounds regional warning over Ebola outbreaks in Congo, Guinea

GENEVA (Reuters) – An outbreak of Ebola in Democratic Republic of Congo and Guinea poses a regional risk that requires exceptional vigilance, a senior World Health Organization official said on Monday.

Congo has confirmed four cases of Ebola since a resurgence of the virus was announced on Feb. 7 in Butembo, the epicenter of a previous outbreak that was declared over last June.

An Ebola vaccination campaign has begun in Butembo, in eastern DRC, the WHO said in a tweet on Monday. Separately, the West African country of Guinea declared a new Ebola outbreak on Sunday, with seven confirmed cases and three deaths.

“We have to be exceptionally vigilant, highly alert,” Mike Ryan, WHO’s top emergency expert, told a news briefing.

“This disease (Ebola) represents a regional risk”

The Ebola virus causes severe vomiting and diarrhea and is spread through contact with body fluids.

(Reporting by John Revill, John Miller, Michael Shields in Zurich, Kate Kelland in London, Editing by William Maclean)

First Ebola patient in eastern Congo’s main city dies, fears of epidemic spreading

A health worker checks the temperature of a woman as she crosses the Mpondwe border point separating Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of the ebola screening at the computerised Mpondwe Health Screening Facility in Mpondwe, Uganda June 13, 2019. REUTERS/Newton Nabwaya

GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) – The first Ebola patient in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s largest city, Goma, has died, the government said on Tuesday.

The spread of the virus to Goma, a city of roughly 1 million people on the border with Rwanda, has raised fears the outbreak, which is already the second deadliest Ebola epidemic ever, could spread more widely.

The patient was a priest who became infected during a visit to the town of Butembo, one of the epicenters of the outbreak, before taking a bus to Goma, according to Congo’s health ministry.

He was being driven from Goma to a clinic in Butembo on Monday to receive treatment when he died, North Kivu province’s Governor Carly Nzanzu told an Ebola response meeting.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday that health officials had identified 60 people who had come into contact with the pastor since he was taken ill and that half of them had been vaccinated.

Goma, a lakeside city more than 350 kilometers (220 miles) south of where Ebola was first detected a year ago, is the largest city to be affected by the outbreak, which has infected more than 2,500 people and killed nearly 1,700.

Three Ebola cases which originated in Congo were confirmed in neighboring Uganda a month ago, but no new cases have since been registered in that country.

(Reporting by Stanis Bujakera and Djaffar Al Katanty, Writing by Anna Pujol-Mazzini, Editing by Ed Osmond)