Just four months after the end of the last Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a new case of the virus has been confirmed in the northwestern part of the country, the National Institute of Biomedical Research said on Saturday.
The case was detected in the city of Mbandaka, capital of Congo’s Equateur province, said the institute.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Ebola virus disease (EVD) that occur mostly on the African continent is a deadly disease that most commonly affects people and nonhuman primates (such as monkeys, gorillas, and chimpanzees).
“The virus first spreads to people through direct contact with the blood, body fluids and tissues of animals. Ebola virus then spreads to other people through direct contact with body fluids of a person who is sick with or has died from EVD,” CDC said.
So far, Congo has seen 13 previous outbreaks of Ebola.
The last outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever in the east infected 11 people between October and December last year and killed six of them.
