Ebola: DR Congo death toll rises sharply to at least 131, WHO to host emergency meeting

The toll from the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has risen to an estimated 131 deaths from 513 suspected cases, Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba said.

"We have recorded roughly 131 deaths in total and we have around 513 suspected cases," Samuel Roger Kamba told Congolese national television overnight.

He cautioned however that the toll was an estimate and further research was needed to confirm whether all 131 suspected deaths were indeed linked to Ebola.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has declared the outbreak a Continental Public Health Emergency, in a statement late Monday.

Declaring a continental emergency empowers the Africa CDC, based in Ethiopia, to mobilise extra resources including emergency response teams and surveillance operations. 

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"Africa CDC expresses deep concern about the high risk of regional spread due to intense cross-border population movements, mobility related to mining activities, insecurity in affected areas, weak infection prevention and control measures... and the proximity of affected areas to Rwanda and South Sudan," it said.

• WHO concerned by the ‘scale and speed’ of the epidemic

The World Health Organization will host an emergency committee meeting on Tuesday to discuss the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a WHO spokesman said.

"An Emergency Committee has been scheduled for later today," a WHO spokesman told AFP, two days after the UN health agency's chief declared the outbreak an international public health emergency.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday he was "deeply concerned" by an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo which has spilt into Uganda.

He declared on Sunday the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), the second-highest level of alert under international health regulations. 

"I did not do this lightly... I'm deeply concerned about the scale and speed of the epidemic," he told the World Health Assembly in Geneva.

He added that he would convene the agency's emergency committee later Tuesday "to advise us on temporary recommendations".

A World Health Organization official warned Tuesday that the duration of a deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo could be lengthy. 

"I don't think that in two months we will be done with this outbreak," Anne Ancia, WHO's DRC representative, told reporters in Geneva, speaking from Bunia in DRC's Ituri region, pointing to a recent Ebola outbreak that "took two years".

No vaccine or treatment exists for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola behind the latest outbreak of the deadly disease, which has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa in the past half century.

Read moreWhat we know about the deadly new Ebola outbreak in DR Congo

• Spread of the virus beyond borders

The outbreak's epicentre is in the northeastern Ituri province on the border with Uganda and South Sudan, whose status as a gold-mining hub leads to people regularly crisscrossing the region.

The virus has already spread into neighbouring provinces, as well as beyond the DRC's borders.

Suspected cases have been reported in the commercial hub of Butembo in neighbouring North Kivu province, some 200 kilometres away from the epidemic's ground zero, Kamba said, without giving further details.

Another case has been recorded in Goma, a key provincial capital currently in the hands of the Rwanda-backed AFC/M23 militia.

"Unfortunately, the alert was slow to circulate within the community, because people thought it was a mystical illness, and so, as a result, the sick were not taken to the hospital," Kamba said.

As few samples have been able to be tested in laboratories to date, the assessments are based mainly on suspected cases.

• Germany to treat US Ebola patients

Germany is preparing to admit and treat a US citizen who contracted Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the German health ministry told AFP on Tuesday.

"US authorities have requested assistance from the German government in treating a US citizen who contracted Ebola in Congo," a ministry spokesperson said.

"Preparations are currently underway to admit and treat the patient in Germany," the spokesperson added, without saying where and when the patient would be treated.

"In Germany, there is a nationwide network of experts for the management and care of patients with diseases caused by highly pathogenic agents."

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday that the American had contracted the virus following exposure related "to their work" in DRC and had tested positive late Sunday.

(FRANCE with AFP)