Ebola outbreak grows: More dead and infected

TT

Published 10.18

 

Health workers prepare a coffin with a deceased Ebola patient in Bunia, Congo-Kinshasa. Picture from last Friday. Photo: Moses Sawasawa/AP/TT

The dreaded hemorrhagic fever Ebola is claiming more and more victims in Congo-Kinshasa.

The death toll is now 181, Congolese authorities say.

The confirmed and registered cases have risen to 782 people, the country's health ministry writes on X. However, the undercount is believed to be large as the latest outbreak is feared to have been ongoing longer than since mid-May, when the African Union's disease control agency CDC announced it.

Add to this the fact that the outbreak is caused by the so-called Bundibugyo variant of the virus, against which there is no vaccine and no specific treatment.

The World Health Organization (WHO) sounded the alarm on Friday that the outbreak in the northeastern parts of Congo-Kinshasa is spreading to more areas. A WHO effort, worth the equivalent of almost five billion kronor, has been launched to combat the hemorrhagic fever.