Health authorities raised the known death toll in an Ebola outbreak in northwest Republic of Congo to 18 on Tuesday, and said they had imposed a quarantine on the hardest-hit village.
Health workers are following 164 people believed to have come into contact with those infected, the Health Ministry said.
The Health Ministry and the World Health Organisation confirmed the outbreak on Friday, when the recorded death toll stood at 11.
Officials said on Tuesday they had traced the epidemic back to four young hunters who had eaten a wild boar they found dead in the forest.
All four of the boys, residents of the Cuvette West province village of Mbanza, died. The other deaths occurred in the village of Mbomo, 17 kilometres away.
Authorities placed a quarantine on Mbomo, trying to stop the epidemic’s spread.
Ebola, one of the world’s deadliest viral diseases, causes rapid death through massive blood loss in up to 90% of those infected. An Ebola outbreak in the same region in January killed 120 people.
The WHO says Ebola has killed more than 1 000 people since the virus was first identified in 1976 in western Sudan and in a region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, this country’s larger, eastern neighbour. – Sapa-AP