An outbreak of Ebola fever as been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said today.
Samples from five people have tested positive for the Ebola virus, for which there is no treatment, in the southern province of Kasai Occidental, where authorities have reported some 120 deaths among 300 sick people in the past four months, the WHO said.
Not all these deaths are necessarily due to Ebola however, as other diseases are also suspected to be ravaging the remote region.
Ebola, which causes death in 50 to 90 per cent of cases, is transmitted by contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected persons. Symptoms begin with fever and muscle pain, followed by vomiting, diarrhoea and in some cases bleeding from orifices.
Ebola's natural reservoir seems to reside in African rain forests and in areas of the Western Pacific, according to the United Nations health agency.
Kasai is east of Kikwit, the site of a major Ebola outbreak in the former Zaire in 1995, that killed 250.