The ministry of health in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has confirmed a new Ebola case, which it said was related to a previous outbreak, in the city of Beni, east of the country on Tuesday.
According to the ministry, lab testing at the National Institute for Biomedical Research in Goma confirmed that the case was the Ebola Zaire strain and was genetically connected to the country’s 10th outbreak, which happened in Ituri and North Kivu provinces from 2018 to 2020 and killed at least 2,000 lives.
A 46-year-old woman with Ebola symptoms was hospitalized in Beni, in July ending and unfortunately, passed away on August 15. There are over 130 high-risk contacts that have been identified, out of which 71 have been treated. The others are still at large, the ministry said. The ministry of health had given a statement urging the general populace to keep calm and respect hygienic measures.
The deadly Ebola virus had been discovered in the country’s divided territory in 1976, and since then, there have been at least 14 outbreaks of the disease in the country. In the latest outbreak, five persons died in another area of Equateur province from April to July, this year.
This deadly virus is spread through contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids or contaminated objects. Fever and muscle aches are a few of the early symptoms of the disease, just like malaria.
There is, fortunately, an effective treatment that, if treated earlier, can highly increase the survival rates.
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