A new case of Ebola has been confirmed in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to information from the National Institute for Biomedical Research released on Saturday (23), four months after the end of the last outbreak in the country.
The case was detected in the city of Mbandaka, capital of Congo’s Equateur province, the institute said. A spokesperson for the country’s Ministry of Health confirmed the finding. The victim is a 31-year-old male.
The patient began showing symptoms on April 5, but did not seek treatment for more than a week. He was admitted to an Ebola treatment center on Thursday, but could not survive and died the same day, according to a statement from the World Health Organization (WHO).
“Time is not on our side,” said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa. “The disease had a two-week breakthrough and now we are trying to catch up,” he added.
The city of Mbandaka, a crowded commercial center on the banks of the Congo River, has faced two previous outbreaks – in 2018 and in 2020. It is a locality where people live nearby, with road, sea and air links to the capital Kinshasa.
The WHO said efforts to contain the disease were already underway in Mbandaka, and that a vaccination campaign would begin in the coming days.
Congo has faced 13 previous Ebola outbreaks, including one in 2018-2020 in the east that killed nearly 2,300 people, the second highest number on record in the history of hemorrhagic fever.
The latest outbreak, also in the East, infected 11 people between October and December and killed six of them.
Reporting by Fiston Mahamba, with information by Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala and Benoit Nyemba, writing by Nellie Peyton, editing by Cooper Inveen, Mark Heinrich and Christina Fincher.
Source: CNN Brasil
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