Health officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, say the death toll from the outbreak of the Ebola virus in the east of the country has risen to 67 people. They worry that response efforts have been complicated as the virus is reportedly spreading further into conflict areas.
The Health Ministry declared that since the beginning of August, 105 cases of Ebola have been reported in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, of which 77 have been confirmed by laboratory tests. Eleven people have recovered from the virus, which causes vomiting, hemorrhagic fever and diarrhea.
The Health Minister, Oly Kalenga, who visited the center of the outbreak in Mangina on Wednesday, said he witnessed two patients being released from hospital after undergoing an experimental treatment. In a statement, the Minister said the two people were among the first 10 patients to have received the therapeutic molecule mAb114.
It is the first therapeutic treatment to be used in an outbreak of Ebola in the DRC. Four other experimental treatments have also been approved. Meanwhile, the Head of the World Health Organization, WHO, Tedro Ghebreysus, has commended Congolese officials for quickly using experimental drugs to combat the deadly virus, describing it as “a ray of hope for people with the disease.”
On Friday, the Head of the WHO Emergency Preparedness Unit, Peter Salama, said he had “extremely serious security concerns” after the virus emerged in the town of Oicha in North Kivu. A doctor there has been hospitalized with Ebola, and 97 of his contacts have been identified in an area almost entirely surrounded by armed militia.
It will be tough for health workers to gain easy access to the conflict zone to attend to identified Ebola patients.
