Africa’s top public health body has confirmed a new Ebola outbreak in Congo’s Ituri province, the 17th since the disease first emerged in the country in 1976.
A total of 246 suspected cases and 65 deaths have already been recorded in the new outbreak, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement on Friday.
Here’s what to know about the health crisis:
The outbreak is in a remote part of Congo
The suspected Ebola cases have mainly been recorded in Ituri’s Mongwalu and Rwampara health zones. Suspected cases have also been reported in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province.
So far, only four of the deaths reported are laboratory-confirmed cases, but the new outbreak was confirmed after many suspected cases.
Ituri is in a remote eastern part of Congo with poor road networks, and is more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the nation’s capital, Kinshasa.
One major concern, the Africa CDC said, is the proximity of affected areas to Uganda and South Sudan. Bunia, Ituri’s main city, is near the border with Uganda.
The agency said there’s also risk of further spread due to intense population movement and attacks by armed groups that have killed dozens and displaced thousands in parts of Ituri province in the past year.
There are also gaps in contact tracing, the Africa CDC said, as local authorities race to find those who might have been exposed to the virus.
An unusual strain
Africa CDC said results so far suggest a non-Zaire Ebola virus. It said sequencing is ongoing to further characterize the strain, with results expected within the next 24 hours.
The Ebola Zaire strain was prominent in Congo’s past outbreaks, including the 2018 to 2020 outbreak in the eastern region that killed more than 1,000 people.
The World Health Organization said during Congo’s Ebola outbreak last year that the country has a stockpile of treatments and some 2,000 doses of vaccine. However, the vaccine is directed at Ebola Zaire, it said.
Dr. Gabriel Nsakala, a professor of public health who has been involved in past Ebola outbreak responses in Congo, said treatments for viral infections like Ebola are often directed at symptoms and that efforts regarding vaccines would become clearer when the strain in the new outbreak is confirmed.
The Associated Press contributed to this article