Ebola outbreak declared in northeast DR Congo: WHO

KINSHASA (Reuters) -A person in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) who died of a hemorrhagic fever has tested positive for the Ebola virus, signaling the start of a new outbreak, the DRC Health Ministry and the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

The case was confirmed from tests on nine people who came down with a hemorrhagic fever in Bas-Uele province in the northeast of the country on or after April 22, the statement said, adding that two of the sufferers had died.

“Our country must confront an outbreak of the Ebola virus that constitutes a public health crisis of international significance,” the ministry said.

The WHO’s Congo spokesman Eric Kabambi told Reuters: “It is in a very remote zone, very forested, so we are a little lucky. We always take this very seriously.”

The World Health Organization announced on Twitter that they were informed about the outbreak on May 11 and that at least one case was confirmed to be Ebola by a national reference laboratory in Kinshasa.