Bukavu (DR Congo) (AFP)
Congolese health authorities said on Monday that they have registered another death from Ebola haemorrhagic fever in South Kivu province, the third to be affected by the epidemic in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
"A seven-year-old child died yesterday (Sunday) of Ebola" near Chowe, in Mwenga territory, said Dr. Claude Bahizire, communication officer at the provincial health directorate of South Kivu.
"Two other suspected cases, two women, have been detected and are admitted to the transit center of Bukavu", capital of South Kivu, he added.
According to Dr. Bahizire, the two patients "were in contact with the woman who died last week during her visit to Bukavu for Mwenga".
South Kivu is the first province to be affected by an Ebola epidemic declared on August 1, 2018 in the neighboring province of North Kivu, before spreading marginally to that of Ituri (north-east).
Since then, the disease has made 1,934 deaths and 862 people have been declared cured, according to the latest figures published by the authorities in a bulletin dated Sunday.
The Ebola epidemic, spread by direct and close human contact and with a very high fatality rate, has long been confined to these two regions.
The first two cases in South Kivu province (one death and one confirmed case) were reported on Friday.
The current epidemic in eastern DRC (the tenth 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.
The virus is transmitted to humans by certain wild animals, then through humans through direct and close contact, via the bodily fluids of a sick person.
The efforts of the response are regularly disrupted by insecurity in an area infested by many armed groups but also by community resistance: denial of the disease, non-compliance with specific health measures (secure burial of victims in particular).
© 2019 AFP