Four months after the last known outbreak of Ebola fever in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African country has recorded a new case of infection.
The patient showed the first symptoms on April 5, but only received treatment more than a week later and died on April 21, the World Health Organization said.
As the National Institute for Biomedical Research and the Ministry of Health announced on Saturday, it was a 31-year-old man from the city of Mbandaka in the north-west of the country.
Doctors now see themselves in a race to contain the virus.
"Time is against us," said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa.
"The disease was two weeks ahead." A vaccination campaign should begin in the coming days.
It is the 14th outbreak in the Central African country since the virus was first detected near the Ebola River in 1976.
Almost 2,300 people died in an outbreak from 2018 to 2020 alone.
In the most recent outbreak, six of a total of eleven infected people died from October to December last year.
The Ebola pathogen causes fever, bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea and is spread through contact with body fluids.