Goma (DR Congo) (AFP)

Sixteen days after a first case of Ebola in Goma, a large city in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a second patient recorded Tuesday reinforces the threat of a spread of the epidemic already responsible for 1,790 deaths.

"I have just been informed of a case of Ebola in Goma," Dr Aruna Abedi, coordinator of the Ebola response in North Kivu province, told AFP. capital city. "It was a gentleman who came from Mongbwalu and was followed in Bunia (Ituri), he fled our response teams and is in Goma," he said.

This case is the second recorded in this city of about two million inhabitants, located on the border with Rwanda, since the declaration of the epidemic in the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri on August 1, 2018. The first case was discovered on July 14th.

In an official statement to AFP, signed by Congolese professor and expert Jean-Jacques Muyembe, it is noted: "Our teams of the response have just detected and isolate a second case on July 30, 2019, and a priori unrelated with the first case ".

According to this document, the patient "arrived in Goma since July 13, 2019 from a mining area in the province of Ituri, without signs of illness, and developed the first signs on July 22, 2019".

"The patient is currently at the Goma Ebola Treatment Center for treatment," said the statement, which was jointly signed by Nzanzu Kasivita Carly, Governor of North Kivu Province.

The two Congolese officials called on the population to collaborate with the response teams and assured "neighboring countries that all measures are being taken to strengthen surveillance at points of entry and sanitary control".

- Health emergency -

This epidemic is the worst in the history of the disease since the one that hit West Africa between late 2013 and 2016. It killed 1,790 people, according to the latest figures released Tuesday.

By mid-July, the World Health Organization (WHO) had elevated it to the rank of "public health emergency of international concern", a status reserved for the most serious epidemics.

In the process, the World Bank announced on July 24 the grant of aid of up to $ 300 million, in addition to the $ 100 million already provided by the institution through its mechanism. emergency aid in the event of a pandemic.

The "Ebola virus disease" (formerly known as "Ebola haemorrhagic fever") takes its name from the Ebola River, located in the northern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, Zaire era) where the virus was spotted for the first time in 1976.

It is transmitted between humans through direct contact, a healthy person is contaminated by the "bodily fluids" of a sick person (blood, vomit, feces ...) and its "case fatality rate" is very high because it kills on average about half of those affected, according to WHO.

© 2019 AFP