The death toll from an outbreak of the deadly ebola virus in a remote northern area of the Republic of Congo has reached 76, the country’s government said late Monday.
Congo’s health ministry said the ebola outbreak, which was confirmed by laboratory tests last week, remained contained to the districts of Kelle and Mbomo, about 800 kilometres north of the capital Brazzaville.
Ebola is a viral hemorraghic fever that causes massive bleeding and kills more than half of the people who contract the disease. It is spread by contact with bodily fluids and there is no known cure. Government and World Health Organisation (WHO) officials believe the outbreak was caused by villagers eating the meat of gorillas
who had themselves died of ebola.
A year ago, 62 people died from ebola in northern Congo and across the border in Gabon, according to WHO figures. In 1999, 170 people died in an outbreak in northern Uganda and in 1995, the disease killed 265 in the town of Kikwit in the
Democratic Republic of Congo, then known as Zaire. – Sapa-DPA