France has announced its first confirmed case of Ebola.
NAIROBI - Reported Ebola cases have surged above 1,000 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and health experts are warning this could be one of the worst outbreaks, rivalling the largest on record, which killed 11,365 people in West Africa from 2014 to 2016.
This week, French officials announced the country’s first case of Ebola from this outbreak - a doctor who had travelled to Congo on a humanitarian mission. The doctor was being treated at a special medical facility and was reported to be in stable condition, according to a statement from the French Health Ministry. With more than 250 confirmed deaths in Africa, the World Health Organisation said Tuesday that the current outbreak, first reported in May, has the largest number of confirmed cases during the first month of any Ebola outbreak in Africa.
There have been 17 outbreaks since the discovery of the virus in 1976, involving three strains. The current strain, Bundibugyo, has been seen only twice before, in 2007 in Uganda and in 2017 in Congo. There is no specific treatment or vaccine for it. “None of those previous outbreaks had the magnitude of the volume of cases and geographical spread that we are seeing today,” said Manuel Albela, an epidemiologist with Doctors Without Borders who is working with the Ebola response team.
