DRC: Health officials scramble to respond to latest ebola outbreak

Health officials met in Kinshasa Friday to discuss a response to a deadly Ebola outbreak in eastern DR Congo.

The outbreak was confirmed in northeastern Ituri province, which borders Uganda and South Sudan, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Results from 13 of 20 samples tested in the capital, Kinshasa, indicated that "four deaths have been reported among laboratory-confirmed cases", it said.

"We know that there is an outbreak in Ituri province, affecting mainly the two health zones of Rwampara and Mongbwalu, and so far we have recorded four deaths, which were preliminarily identified from more than 17 samples that have been taken. However, we have already identified several suspected cases, which the teams are currently monitoring," said Dieudonne Mwamba, Director General of the National Institute of Public Health.

Mining in the gold-rich province creates an intense movement of people on a daily basis.

For years, Ituri has been plagued by recurrent clashes driven by local militias, making it difficult to access certain parts of the province for security reasons.

The last outbreak in the country was in August in the central region and killed at least 34 people, before being declared eradicated in December.

Nearly 2,300 people died in the deadliest outbreak in the DRC between 2018 and 2020.