The Ebola epidemic is spreading "very rapidly" in Congo and now poses a "very high" risk, with alert levels significantly raised, according to the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, according to AP.
The risk of global spread remains low, but the UN health agency is revising upwards its risk assessment in Congo, previously classified as "high."
In Congo, according to the WHO report, 82 cases and seven deaths have been confirmed, but the epidemic is believed to be "much more widespread." It added that there are now nearly 750 suspected cases and 177 deaths that have not yet been officially confirmed, but for which Ebola is feared to be the cause.
The supplies were sent urgently to Ituri province in the northeastern part of the country, where the disease has been spreading for weeks in areas where many people have been displaced by the armed conflict.
In the last few hours, some desperate Congolese people set fire to a field hospital treating Ebola patients after they refused to hand over the body of a relative, who was highly contagious and required a special burial.
(Unioneonline)
