Bukavu (DR Congo) (AFP)

The announcement of the first two Ebola infections in South Kivu, the third province affected by the epidemic that has already left 1,900 dead in the Democratic Republic of Congo, caused fears on Friday widespread spread.

"Two positive test cases of Ebola have been confirmed in the night of August 15 in South Kivu, in the territory of Mwenga," said a statement from the governorate of South Kivu AFP.

One of the 26-year-old "dead" has passed away and one of her "tested positive" children is still alive and in medical care, the statement said.

"Since yesterday, the teams of the national coordination came to support to effectively contribute to the fight against this disease," the governor of South Kivu Theo Ngwabidje told reporters.

The province of South Kivu borders Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and neighbors Congolese provinces of Maniema, Tanganyika and North Kivu.

The reactions were not long in coming.

"Sad to confirm that two people who traveled from Beni (North Kivu) to Mwenga in South Kivu in the DRC are infected with Ebola, triggered a quick reaction from the DRC Ministry of Health, the WHO and partners to provide treatment, identify all contacts, sensitize the community and start vaccinating, "wrote in a tweet Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO).

"We are sad to learn that two Ebola cases have been confirmed in the South Kivu region and we will quickly deploy a team of experts to support the response," the ICRC posted on its twitter account.

Declared on August 1, 2018, the epidemic of haemorrhagic fever, which is transmitted by direct and close human contacts and whose case-fatality rate is very high, has long been confined to rural areas of North Kivu (Beni and Butembo-Katwa). and in neighboring Ituri. Two cases have nonetheless been recorded in neighboring Uganda.

The disease claimed 1,905 deaths and 844 people were cured, according to the latest figures released by the authorities.

-We will die all'-

In Bukavu, there was anxiety among the inhabitants. "In this period when water rarely flows in our faucets, how are we going to avoid this disease that requires regular washing of hands," wondered Martine Mushagalusa, mother of 5 children.

"With the promiscuity in which we live, traffic is not controlled, people leave one place for another without precaution, the authorities must be involved otherwise we will die all," said Anselme Kangeta, a 35 year old man.

"Beni, Butembo, Goma was still containable, but with the disease in South Kivu, the risk of spreading to Kalemie (Tanganyika province), Tanzania and Burundi are enormous," said a Congolese epidemiologist. university professor.

On Thursday, Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe, coordinator of the Ebola response, was optimistic because of the discovery of Ebola-treated molecules (mAb114 and REGN-EB3).

Thanks to the new methods that are in use, with these two treatments and the vaccine used so far, "we can manage to completely control the epidemic in 3 to 4 months", said this Congolese expert, pioneer in the fight against Ebola.

US health authorities, who co-funded an Ebola treatment study, said on Monday that the two drugs significantly boosted the survival rate of patients in a clinical trial in the DRC, which has doubled.

According to the experts, among the approximately 500 people whose data were analyzed (out of a total of 681 participants), mortality fell to 29% with REGN-EB3 and 34% with mAb114. Whereas for people not taking any treatment, the mortality rate is between 60 and 67%.

The current epidemic in eastern DRC (the 10th on its soil since 1976) is the second largest in the history of the disease after that which killed nearly 11,000 people in West Africa (Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone) in 2013-2014.

© 2019 AFP