The World Health Organization has declared an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda as a global health emergency.
In a statement on Sunday, the agency said its Director-General had consulted with the two nations and determined that the outbreak met the criteria of a "public health emergency of international concern."
As of Saturday, around 246 suspected cases and 80 suspected deaths had been reported across the DRC's Ituri Province, with eight laboratory-confirmed cases.
A further two lab-confirmed cases have been reported in the Ugandan capital Kampala and one in Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC.
"There are significant uncertainties to the true number of infected persons and geographic spread associated with this event at the present time," the World Health Organization said in its statement, adding that there was also "limited understanding of the epidemiological links with known or suspected cases."
