Three new Ebola cases confirmed in eastern Congo

The latest flare-up appears to be linked to an outbreak in 2018
An agent of the National Institute of Public Hygiene (INHP) disinfects
AFP via Getty Images
Daniel Keane18 October 2021

Three new Ebola cases have been confirmed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the World Health Organisation has said.

Health officials said the latest flare-up, which brings the total number of infections to five in the past 10 days, appeared to be linked to the 2018-20 outbreak which killed more than 2,200 people.

The new cases were detected on Saturday in the health district of Butsili, close to the city of Beni where the last outbreak was centred, the WHO said in a statement. Three people out of the five confirmed cases have died.

Flare-ups after a major Ebola outbreak can be caused by latent infections that linger in the semen of survivors. A fresh outbreak of the virus linked to the 2018-20 epidemic broke out in February and led to six deaths.

Congo has recorded 12 outbreaks since the disease–which causes severe vomiting and diarrhoea, and is spread through contact with body fluids–was discovered in the equatorial forest near the Ebola River in 1976.

Vaccines have been a game changer in containing recent outbreaks more quickly.

Last week, medics began vaccinating contacts of the cases using a jab manufactured by Merck. It is one of two available Ebola vaccines, the other made by Johnson & Johnson.

The disease typically kills around half of those it infects. However, treatments developed since the record 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa have significantly reduced death rates when cases are detected early.

Meanwhile, the Congo has also struggled to vaccinate its population against Covid amid rising cases and deaths. The most recent figures showed that the country had jabbed less than 0.1 per cent of its 100 million people.

Richard Mihigo, program area manager for immunisation and vaccine development at the WHO’s Africa office, told Bloomberg that the pace of the rollout was "very concerning". The Congo has recorded 57,269 cases and 1,089 deaths from the virus.

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