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WHO is working with the DRC government to control the outbreak, with more than 100 contacts of the deceased traced to date.
A second person died of Ebola this week in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s North Kivu province, the health ministry and the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement.
A 60-year-old woman who died in Biena district on Wednesday was linked to a woman who also died after contracting Ebola and who was married to a survivor of the previous major outbreak, the statement said.
The DRC’s health ministry has deployed a team to the region and is tracking more than 100 contacts of the two women in Biena and Katwa health zones, he said in the statement.
Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said in a briefing Thursday that the United Nations health body is working in coordination with the DRC government to prevent the spread of the disease.
The two Ebola cases were detected nearly three months after the DRC announced the end of its 11th outbreak hundreds of kilometers away in the northwestern province of Equateur, which infected 130 people and killed 55.
This outbreak overlapped with a previous one in the east from August 1, 2018 to June 25, 2020, which killed more than 2,200 people, the second largest in the history of the disease and the deadliest in the DRC.
The last person declared cured of Ebola in Ecuador was on October 16.
Widespread use of Ebola vaccines, which have been administered to more than 40,000 people, has helped curb the disease.
In the past year, two Ebola vaccines have been approved and distributed, including one from pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson, which has also produced a COVID-19 vaccine that will only require one vaccine and can be stored at normal refrigeration temperatures.
The emergence of more Ebola cases could complicate efforts to eradicate COVID-19, which has infected 23,600 people and killed 681 in DRC.
A COVID vaccination campaign is expected to start in the first half of this year.
Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicines, told the WHO briefing that there was no reason to prevent the distribution and administration of effective vaccines for both Ebola and COVID-19.
Ebola is a viral hemorrhagic fever that spreads through contact with bodily fluids. In extreme cases, it causes fatal bleeding from internal organs, mouth, eyes or ears.
The average Ebola death rate is around 50%, but it can reach 90% for some epidemics, according to the WHO.
The virus that causes Ebola virus is thought to live in bats.
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