Suspected Ebola outbreak in DRC under investigation

According to reports from online sources, a total of twelve suspected cases of the Ebola virus have been reported in the province of Equateur, situated in the western part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In addition to these reports, officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) have corroborated the presence of twelve suspected cases, eight of which have proven to be fatal, within the designated area of Boyenge. Consequently, biological samples extracted from the affected patients have been expedited to the National Institute for Biomedical Research in Kinshasa for further analysis and comprehensive evaluation. If these results are confirmed, it would represent the fourth Ebola outbreak in the Equateur province since 2018. The last outbreak in the province occurred between April and July 2022 in Mbandaka, the capital, where five cases were reported, all of which were fatal. The sampling sequence suggested that the outbreak was triggered by a new event propagated by an animal rather than linked to a previous one.