Africa-Press – Botswana. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced today that health authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) are investigating a likely new outbreak of Ebola in North Kivu province, in the northeast of the country.
The Congolese National Biomedical Research Laboratory is processing samples that arrived from a patient who died last week after showing symptoms of the disease.
“While the tests are being carried out, the WHO is already on the ground supporting health professionals in the investigation of this case and in the preparation for an eventual resurgence” of the disease, announced the organization.
Efforts are also being made to locate people who have had contact with the dead patient to see if they have any symptoms.
The organization also indicated that it will ensure that people in need will have access to recommended treatments, based on a technology that involves the use of monoclonal antibodies.
These drugs, considered an advance in the fight against the disease, which has a mortality rate between 60% and 80%, have a high cost.
The last Ebola outbreaks were reported in 2021 in Guinea-Conakry and DR Congo, although the most serious outbreak in history developed to the scale of an epidemic that spread across West Africa between 2014 and 2016, during which time it caused more than 11,000 deaths.
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