Deadly Ebola virus strikes again

2008-12-25 21:18

Kinshasa - The disease that has killed nine people in southern Democratic Republic of Congo has been identified as the deadly Ebola virus, the country's health minister said on Thursday.

The virus appeared in southern Western Kasai province on November 27, and blood and stool samples were sent to laboratories in Gabon and South Africa for identification.

"Following the analysis of samples taken in (the village of) Kalwamba, it is now recognised that we are facing an epidemic of the viral haemorrhagic fever Ebola," said Health Minister Auguste Mopipi Mukulumanya.

There is no cure or treatment for Ebola, which kills 50 to 90% of its victims.

Mukulumanya said an Ebola epidemic in the same area last year was originally believed to have killed 174 out of more than 400 suspected cases. Medical experts now think the death toll may have been much lower.

"The country has had to face similar situations in the past. But this is the first time that an epidemic has hit the same area twice," he said. "Measures have already been taken to avoid the spreading of this epidemic to other locations."

Health ministry officials are monitoring 92 people believed to have been in contact with the nine victims or who have shown signs of the disease, which is spread by contact with the blood and bodily fluids of infected people.

Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres sent a team of doctors, nurses and logisticians to Western Kasai earlier this week. Haemorrhagic fever specialists and epidemiologists are also expected in the area.

Symptoms of Ebola begin with fever and muscle pain, followed by vomiting, diarrhoea and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding.

A major outbreak of Ebola in Congo, then known as Zaire, in 1995 killed 250 of the 315 people infected.

- Reuters