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GENEVA: The risk from a deadly Ebola outbreak is high in central Africa but remains low globally, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday, adding that the virus had likely been spreading for months.
The outbreak of the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever was declared in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo last Friday. Ebola has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa in the past half-century, and the UN health agency has declared the latest surge an international health emergency.
The 17th Ebola outbreak to hit the DRC is already suspected of having caused 139 deaths from around 600 probable cases. “We expect those numbers to keep increasing, given the amount of time the virus was circulating before the outbreak was detected,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters.
“Given the scale, we are thinking that it has started probably a couple of months ago,” said Anais Legand, WHO technical officer on viral haemorrhagic fevers.
