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A three-year-old boy tests positive and dies near Beni just five months after the country’s latest epidemic ended.
A case of Ebola has been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) just five months after the last outbreak of the disease in the country ended.
A three-year-old boy tested positive near the eastern town of Beni, one of the epicenters of the 2018-2020 epidemic, and died of the illness on Wednesday, Health Minister Jean said on Friday. Jacques Mbungani in a press release.
It was not immediately clear whether the case was linked to the 2018-2020 epidemic that killed more than 2,200 people in eastern DRC, the second deadliest on record, or to the outbreak that has killed six people this year.
Around 100 people, who may have been exposed to the virus, have been identified and will be monitored to see if they develop symptoms, the statement added.
An internal report from the DRC Biomedical Lab said three of the toddler’s neighbors in the densely populated Butsili neighborhood of Beni also had symptoms compatible with Ebola last month and died, but none were tested.
The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a statement saying it was working with “health authorities to investigate the case.”
The #RDC The Ministry of Health has just announced that a new case of Ebola has been detected in the province of North Kivu, where a previous epidemic was declared on May 3, 2021. @WHO is working with health authorities to investigate the case.
– WHO African Region (@WHOAFRO) October 8, 2021
The DRC has recorded 12 outbreaks since the disease was discovered in the equatorial forest near the Ebola River in 1976.
It causes severe vomiting and diarrhea and is spread through contact with bodily fluids.
The disease reappeared in February in a region of North Kivu which, between August 2018 and June 2020, experienced the largest Ebola epidemic in the history of the DRC – 3,470 infections and 2,287 deaths.
Health experts say it is not unusual for sporadic cases to occur following a major outbreak. Particles of the virus can remain in semen for months after an infection has healed.
The disease typically kills about half of the people it infects, although treatments developed in West Africa have dramatically reduced death rates when cases are caught early.
Since then, two very effective vaccines have also been used to contain epidemics.
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