The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday voiced concern about the "scale and speed" of the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The WHO is holding an emergency meeting later on Tuesday in Geneva to discuss developments in Ituri province and other parts of eastern DRC.
The outbreak involves a rare strain of Ebola, called Bundibugyo, for which these is no recognized vaccine. It is also taking place in remote parts of the country, making the lab testing of suspected cases slow and challenging. The outbreak is in a remote and sometimes wartorn area, posing challenges for health authorities trying to respondImage: Xinhua/IMAGO
What do we know about the suspected and confirmed caseload, death toll?
Congolese Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba spoke on national television early on Tuesday, giving an update on the recorded progress of the hemorrhagic fever."We have recorded roughly 131 deaths in total and we have around 513 suspected cases," Kamba said. "The deaths we are reporting are all the deaths we have identified in the community, without necessarily saying that they are all linked to Ebola."
