Hundreds of missing Ebola patients raising concern about uncontrolled spread of virus

Almost 300 people who’ve tested positive for Ebola are unaccounted for, according to the head of the Africa Centres For Disease Control.

The unknown whereabouts of the patients is raising serious concern about gaps in tracking and the uncontrolled spread of the deadly virus.

The DR Congo has confirmed more than 1,100 cases of Ebola since the outbreak was announced in mid-May. At least 291 people have died.

The outbreak has been largely confined to the DRC. Uganda has reported 20 cases and two deaths. Last week France announced that a doctor who had just returned from Congo had tested positive for Ebola.

But new World Health Organization (WHO) projections are predicting more than 8,000 cases and 1,400 deaths by mid-September, with a 70 percent chance of spreading to neighboring South Sudan.

Efforts by Congolese authorities and those in neighboring countries are working to slow transmission, the WHO has said. But under the worst-case scenario, there could be more than 60,000 cases by September.

The current outbreak - the 17th to hit the DRC - is already the worst on record. More than a million people in the affected are are inaccessible to health workers due to the ongoing conflict in eastern Congo.