A rare Ebola outbreak that may have spread undetected in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo for weeks has revealed the difficulty of detecting the deadly virus in areas where malaria, typhoid and other fever-causing diseases were common and health systems were thin.
About 350 suspected cases with 91 deaths have been reported in northeastern DR Congo, the country’s health minister Roger Kamba said on Sunday, while neighboring Uganda has confirmed two infections, including one death in Kampala.
A separate case was also reported on Sunday in Goma, a city in eastern Congo controlled by the Rwandan-backed M23 rebels.
“Hospitals are already under pressure,” Kamba told reporters in Bunia, the capital of Ituri state, where the outbreak is believed to have started in April and hospitalized 59 people. “It’s not a strange disease,” he said, urging people with symptoms to seek treatment quickly to help slow the spread.
The outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola. DR Congo’s first patient, a nurse in Bunia, developed symptoms on April 24, according to Jean Kaseya, executive director of the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
By the time health authorities were first alerted to the outbreak on social media on May 5, 50 deaths had been recorded, the African CDC said.
