# 2595
This is a story we've been watching for about 5 days. On 12/20 the following report hit the newswires (hat tip Dutchy on Flutrackers).
Hemorrhagic fever blamed for 9 deaths in Congo
12/20/2008 |
KINSHASA, Congo - Medical authorities in Congo say nine people are dead from what could be hemorrhagic fever.
District Medical Inspector Edmond Mulamba says it is too early to label the illness. It is also too early to say if the deaths are due to ebola, a type of hemorrhagic fever.
He says tests were being run to determine the cause of the deaths in remote Kasai Province. At least 14 other people are suffering from symptoms of hemorrhagic fever, including high temperature and violent vomiting.
Mulamba says a team of doctors from the World Health Organization are traveling to the province.
Last year, at least 167 people died of ebola in the same district where the current illness is being reported, around 400 miles (700 kilometers) southeast of Congo's capital, Kinshasa. -
Since then, we've received a number of reports, and the indications are that this outbreak began in late November, in a remote area 400 miles to the South East of the Capital.
Today, via a machine translation of an AFP report in French (hat tip, Florida1 at Flutrackers), we get confirmation that this is indeed Ebola.
New Ebola outbreak in DRC: nine deaths and 21 patients identified
KINSHASA (AFP) - A new Ebola epidemic broke out in the center of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), killing nine people and 21 patients identified, said Thursday Radio Okapi, citing the Congolese Minister of Health Augustine Mopipi.
This epidemic has emerged in the town of Kampongo to more than 60 km from Mueka in the province of Kasai Occidental (center), said the minister stressed that the analysis of samples taken on site have confirmed the existence of the Ebola haemorrhagic fever.
Highly contagious disease, fatal in 50 to 90% of cases, Ebola had struck the former Zaire on three occasions.
In 1976, the virus has killed nearly 500 people on both sides of the border between Sudan and north-eastern Zaire, where he resurfaced in 1995, with 245 deaths in the Bandundu province (west).
In 2007, 26 confirmed cases of Ebola had been registered in the province of Kasai Occidental, where several outbreaks associated (Ebola, typhoid fever, malaria, dysentery) killed 187 people.
