Beni (DR Congo) (AFP)

The Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday announced the "resurgence" of Ebola virus disease in the east of the country, where the World Health Organization (WHO) dispatched a team of epidemiologists after the death of a woman of this disease, 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 said on national television, adding that a fatal case had been located in the Biena area 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.

"The disinfection of the sites visited by the patient is also underway," adds the WHO, stressing that Butembo "was one of the epicenters of the previous Ebola epidemic in eastern DRC" and that it "n It is not uncommon for sporadic cases to occur after a major outbreak ".

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.

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

- "Permanent" risk -

Minister Eteni did not declare the twelfth Ebola outbreak on Sunday.

But, he warned in mid-November that "the high risk of resurgence (of the Ebola virus disease) remains permanent" in the DRC.

The tenth Ebola epidemic, the deadliest in the DRC, was declared on August 1, 2018 in the east of the country.

Its end was officially declared on June 25, 2020: "There were 3,481 cases, 2,299 deaths and 1,162 survivors," according to WHO figures.

To stop this 10th epidemic, the DRC had resorted for the first time to vaccination on more than 320,000 people in this unstable area, with two vaccines from two different laboratories (Merck and Johnson & Johnson).

The same strategy had been used to overcome the 11th epidemic which had broken out in a difficult-to-access region of Equateur province in the northeast.

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.

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 elevated 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.

© 2021 AFP