Already faced with the Covid-19 pandemic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo must now face the return of the Ebola virus.

The authorities indeed announced Sunday, February 7 the "resurgence" of the disease in the east of the country, after the death of a woman, three months after the declaration of the end of a previous epidemic.

There is a "resurgence of the Ebola virus in eastern DRC," Congolese Minister of Health Eteni Longondo told state television RTNC.

He specified that this "other episode of Ebola virus disease" had been located in the Biena health zone in North Kivu (East).

"This is a farmer, wife of a survivor of the Ebola virus disease, having presented on February 1, the typical signs of this disease", very contagious, added the minister.

Died on February 3, the analysis of the sample of her blood taken before her death resulted in a positive result for the Ebola virus, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.

This new case was recorded after the announcement on November 18, 2020 of the official end of the eleventh outbreak of the Ebola virus disease in the province of Equateur in the northwest which killed 55 out of 130 people. identified cases.

It was on October 16, 2020 that the last Ebola patient was declared cured in this Congolese province.

The risk of spread

Identified in 1976 by Peter Piot and an international team including the Congolese professor Muyembe, the Ebola virus is transmitted to humans by infected animals. 

Human transmission is through body fluids, with the main symptoms of fever, vomiting, bleeding, diarrhea.

The tenth Ebola epidemic, the deadliest in the DRC, declared on August 1, 2018 in the east of the country and whose declaration of its end came on June 25, 2020, killed 2,287 people for 3,470 cases, according to the reports. Congolese authorities and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Since the great 2013-2016 epidemic in West Africa (11,000 dead), and the export of a few cases to the West via humanitarian workers, the WHO fears with each outbreak of Ebola a spread of the virus in the world .

The UN agency had also raised the previous epidemic in the East to the rank of international health emergency.

The DRC is also facing the Covid-19 epidemic with 23,599 cases and 681 deaths. 

With AFP

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