Ebola death toll in DR Congo at 41

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Forty-one people have died in the latest outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), health authorities said on Tuesday, adding that doctors were using a novel drug to treat patients.

Out of 57 recorded cases as of Monday, 41 were fatal, the Congolese Health Ministry and UN's World Health Organization (WHO) said. Fourteen of the deaths had been confirmed by lab tests, the ministry said.

Last Friday, the ministry put the death toll at 37, either confirmed or suspected.

A Congolese health worker checks temperatures of children near Mangina village in North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, August 8, 2018. /VCG Photo

The outbreak is the country's 10th since 1976, when the disease was first identified in the DRC near the Ebola River, a tributary of the Congo.

Its epicenter is Mangina in the region of Beni, in the strife-torn eastern province of North Kivu.

The ministry's directorate for disease control said that doctors in Beni had started to use a novel treatment called mAb114 to treat patients with Ebola.

The treatment is "the first therapeutic drug against the virus to be used in an active Ebola epidemic in the DRC," it said.

Congolese health workers prepare for a vaccination campaign against the deadly Ebola virus near Mangina village in North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, August 8, 2018. /VCG Photo

Ebola causes serious illness including vomiting, diarrhea and in some cases internal and external bleeding. It is often fatal if untreated.

In the worst Ebola epidemic, the disease struck the West African states of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2013-15, killing more than 11,300 people.

(Top image: Congolese officials and World Health Organization officials participate in a training against the Ebola virus near the town of Beni in North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, August 11, 2018. /VCG Photo)

Source(s): AFP