WHO confirms death of 4th patient in DR Congo

dimeji akinloye

May 22, 2017 11:30 PM

Since the WHO declared the outbreak on May 12 in north-eastern Bas-Uele province, 37 suspected cases are being monitored, WHO’s Eugene Kabambi said.

The Ebola outbreak in remote northern DR Congo is the first in Africa since a a crisis that began at the end of 2013 in west Africa that killed 11,300 people

A fourth person has died in an

Since the WHO declared the outbreak on May 12 in north-eastern Bas-Uele province, 37 suspected cases are being monitored, WHO’s Eugene Kabambi said.

Of these suspected cases, two were confirmed in the laboratory and three were regarded as probable Ebola cases, Kabambi said.

Community health agents are monitoring 400 people who may have come into contact with those killed by the virus.

"People who were in contact with the first case reported on April 22 came out unscathed after the 21 days of observation," Kabambi said.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has suffered seven previous outbreaks of Ebola since the virus was discovered in the country in 1976.

The last outbreak, in 2014, left 49 people dead.

West Africa was worst affected during 2014, with the haemorrhagic fever claiming more than 11,000 lives, most of those in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

dimeji akinloye