"A new epidemic" of Ebola hemorrhagic fever has broken out in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo, said the country's Minister of Health, Eteni Longondo, on Monday.
"Four people have already died," added the minister during a press conference. These four deaths were recorded in a district of Mbandaka, the capital of Equateur province, about 600 km as the crow flies north of the capital, Kinshasa. The two cities are connected by the Congo River. It takes about a week of navigation to go from one to the other.
"The National Biomedical Research Institute (INRB) has just confirmed to me that the samples from Mbandaka are positive for Ebola virus disease," added the minister.
"We will send them the vaccine and the medicines very quickly," he continued, planning to go to the site at the end of the week.
Another province already affected
The province of Equateur was affected by a previous Ebola epidemic between May and July 2018 (54 cases for 33 dead and 21 survivors). “It is a province that has already experienced the disease. They already have reflexes of what to do. They have already started the response at the local level since yesterday "Sunday, said the minister.
Another Ebola epidemic is still ongoing at the other end of the country, in the East. It has killed 2,280 people since August 2018. The end of this epidemic must be proclaimed on June 25, after a countdown of 42 days with no new cases.
It is the eleventh epidemic of Ebola fever declared on Congolese soil since the discovery of the virus in this country, then called Zaire, in 1976. The DRC is also affected by the epidemic of coronavirus (3,195, including 2,896 in Kinshasa , and 72 deaths, according to the latest official figures published on Monday).