The Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday reported a possible resurgence of Ebola after a woman died of the disease near the eastern city of Butembo.
This is coming three months after authorities declared the end of the country’s previous outbreak which infected 130 persons and killed 55.
The announcement marks the start of Congo’s 12th Ebola outbreak since the virus was discovered near the Ebola River in 1976.
The woman died in hospital in Butembo two days after showing symptoms. Health minister Eteni Longondo told state television RTNC: “It was a farmer, the wife of a survivor of Ebola, who showed typical signs of the disease on February 1,”
According to a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine, the virus can live in the semen of male survivors for more than three years.
The symptoms are high fever, muscular discomfort followed by vomiting, internal and external bleeding. Others include diarrhoea, skin eruptions, kidney and liver failure.
Outbreaks in the west of the country had overlapped with an earlier one in the east that began in 2018 and ended in June. It killed more than 2,200 people, the second-most in the disease’s history. It was worsened by unprecedented challenges, including entrenched conflict between armed groups.
The administration of Ebola vaccinations to more than 40,000 people helped control the disease. The virus that causes Ebola is believed to reside in bats.
