Ebola: 362 people under surveillance in North West DRC

KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo (AA) - Some 362 people have been placed under medical surveillance in the northwest part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where a new Ebola outbreak was announced last Tuesday, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.

“We were in Bikoro, where 17 suspected and two confirmed cases have been identified," Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO regional director for Africa, told Anadolu Agency.

She further indicated that 362 contacts were currently being followed in this same area.

Moeti has been in the DRC since Saturday, together with Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO's director general.

Last Tuesday WHO said the DRC had confirmed two cases of Ebola virus in the northwestern town of Bikoro, a poor area on the shores of Lake Tumba in the Equateur province.

“Vaccines will be available in the DRC on Wednesday or Thursday. The priority will be to vaccinate people under surveillance first and then over time, we will expand to the inhabitants of Bikoro,” Ghebreyesus said.

As of May 13, a total of 39 Ebola cases have been reported in the area in the past five weeks. Of those, only two have been confirmed. The rest are 20 probable cases, of which 18 ended in death, and 17 suspected cases, according to WHO.

This is the DRC’s ninth Ebola outbreak since the discovery of the virus in the country in 1976.

Ebola caused global alarm in 2014 when the world's worst outbreak began in West Africa, killing more than 11,300 people and infecting an estimated 28,600 as it swept through Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.