KINSHASA: An Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has caused at least 80 deaths has a “very high lethality rate” and no vaccine or specific treatment, the country´s health minister warned Saturday.
Nearly 250 suspected cases of the the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever have been recorded in DR Congo, according to the health ministry, with one death reported in neighbouring Uganda.
Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it was preparing a “large-scale response”, calling the rapid spread of the outbreak “extremely concerning”.
“The Bundibugyo strain has no vaccine, no specific treatment,” DR Congo´s Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba said Saturday.
“This strain has a very high lethality rate which can reach 50 percent.”
Earlier Saturday, ministry officials said the death toll had reached 80, up from 65 the previous day. The strain has also claimed one life in neighbouring Uganda, officials said Saturday, that of a Congolese national. That correlated with an announcement late Friday by Uganda´s health ministry, which said a 59-year-old man from the DRC had died in Kampala after being admitted earlier in the week. His body was repatriated the same day.
Tests showed the victim in Uganda was infected with the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, first identified in 2007.
