NAIROBI, Kenya — The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has spread to an eighth province, and Kenya has confirmed an eighth case, health officials said Sunday, DW and Al Jazeera reported.
Congo’s Health Ministry said two cases, including one death, were recorded in Nord-Ubangi province, which borders the Central African Republic. “We see pockets of Ebola generally going down, but unfortunately geographically it’s spreading out,” World Health Organization Regional Director for Africa Mohamed Yakub Janabi told The Associated Press in Beni, eastern Congo, on Friday.
Congo has recorded at least 9,400 cases, including more than 4,500 deaths, since the outbreak was declared in mid-May, the deadliest in the country’s history. Ituri province remains the epicenter, with almost three-quarters of confirmed cases, and authorities in North Kivu are introducing a one-week ban from Monday on people entering from Ituri, the state news agency ACP reported, according to Al Jazeera. Other measures include limits on passengers in cars and on motorbikes and a suspension of large public gatherings.
In Kenya, Director-General for Health Patrick Amoth said one of 38 people tested on Sunday was positive. “He is a 49-year-old man who is not a healthcare worker. He developed fever, headache and muscle pain,” Amoth told Citizen TV.
The man worked as a patient attendant cleaning utensils and linen and was likely exposed to Kenya’s first case, a man who traveled from Congo to Nairobi and died there on Oct. 5. Amoth said patients in quarantine were being tested as they developed symptoms and that the other six patients were stable on supportive treatment.
The outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rare type of Ebola for which there is no approved vaccine or treatment.
Sources: DW, Al Jazeera
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