Dozens reported dead in Ebola outbreak in Congo, Africa CDC says
Fact checked by Kristen Dowd
Sixty-five people are reported to have died in a new Ebola virus outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Africa CDC said Friday.
The outbreak, occurring in a province in northeastern DRC that borders Uganda and South Sudan, involves 246 suspected cases, the Africa CDC said. The agency did not specify how many cases had been confirmed through testing but noted that four people with confirmed infections have died.
In the United States, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, told reporters Friday that the Ugandan government had announced an Ebola outbreak in that country as well.
A communication from the Uganda health ministry posted online by several infectious disease experts said a man in the capital city of Kampala had died of Bundibugyo ebolavirus, a relatively rare species of Ebola that has not caused a recorded outbreak since 2012.
Unlike Zaire ebolavirus, the deadliest and most common species of Ebola, there are no approved vaccines or treatments for Bundibugyo ebolavirus. Vaccines have been essential to ending recent Ebola outbreaks, including one last year in the DRC that killed 45 people.
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