900 deaths from Ebola in Congo since the epidemic outbreak

Since the outbreak of the Ebola epidemic in eastern Congo in August last year, 900 people have died. The Ministry of Health reports this. Slightly fewer than 400 affected people recovered from the disease.

The epidemic broke out on August 1 in the province of North Kivu and to a lesser extent in neighboring Ituri. The virus then moved via rural Mangina and the city of Beni to Butembo-Katwa, 50 kilometers south of Beni.

Medical workers are hindered in their work because some of the residents deny the disease. In addition, they also have to deal with violence and insecurity. For example, a Cameroonian doctor from the World Health Organization (WHO) was killed last week by armed men in the University Hospital of Butembo.

The current Ebola epidemic is the tenth and the most serious on Congolese soil since 1976. It is the second most serious since the epidemic in western Africa in 2014 when the virus killed more than 11,000 in mainly Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.