Thursday, December 25, 2008

New Ebola outbreak in DRC: nine deaths and 21 patients identified

KINSHASA (AFP) - A new Ebola epidemic broke out in the center of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), killing nine people and 21 patients identified, said Thursday Radio Okapi, citing the Congolese Minister of Health Augustine Mopipi.
This epidemic has emerged in the town of Kampongo to more than 60 km from Mueka in the province of Kasai Occidental (center), said the minister stressed that the analysis of samples taken on site have confirmed the existence of the Ebola haemorrhagic fever.
Highly contagious disease, fatal in 50 to 90% of cases, Ebola had struck the former Zaire on three occasions.
In 1976, the virus has killed nearly 500 people on both sides of the border between Sudan and north-eastern Zaire, where he resurfaced in 1995, with 245 deaths in the Bandundu province (west).
In 2007, 26 confirmed cases of Ebola had been registered in the province of Kasai Occidental, where several outbreaks associated (Ebola, typhoid fever, malaria, dysentery) killed 187 people.
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