DRC Ebola Update: Health ministry says current outbreak is the most severe

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02:16

The health ministry in the Democratic Republic of Congo has said the current Ebola outbreak is the most severe in the country's history. There have been 319 confirmed and probable cases registered so far. The haemorrhagic fever is believed to have killed 198 people in North Kivu and Ituri provinces. Attacks by armed groups and community resistance to health officials have complicated the response.

Congo has suffered 10 Ebola outbreaks since the virus was discovered near the eponymous Ebola River in 1976. But this wave is the worst.

OLY ILUNGA KALENGA DRC HEALTH MINISTER "The results of the Ebola epidemic in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces have just surpassed that of the first epidemic in history which occurred in 1976 in Yambuku in the Mongala province."

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus highlighted insecurity and community mistrust as the long-standing primary challenges in managing the epidemic in the DRC.

Following the 2013-2016 outbreak in West Africa over 28,000 cases were confirmed in addition to an outbreak in Uganda in 2000 involving 425 cases. This wave of Ebola is ranked as the third worst in the history of the continent.

OLY ILUNGA KALENGA DRC, HEALTH MINISTER "In view of these figures, my thoughts and my prayers go to the hundreds of families grieving, to the hundreds of orphans and the families which have been wiped out."

The confirmation of new cases has accelerated in the last month following WHO experts' October warning that the outbreak was likely to worsen significantly unless the response was stepped up. BO, CGTN.