The Democratic Republic of Congo has confirmed that
an outbreak of haemorrhagic fever in the north of the
country has been identified as Ebola.
Health Minister Felix Numbi told the BBC that tests on
two people had confirmed the disease in Equateur
province, where 13 had already died.
But he said the deaths occurred in an isolated area and
the disease seemed a different strain to West Africa’s.
Numbi said a quarantine zone was being set up to
contain the disease.
The cases are the first reported outside West Africa
since the outbreak there began.
So far 1,427 people have died from the virus.
The speed and extent of the outbreak has been
“unprecedented”, the World Health Organization says.
An estimated 2,615 people in West Africa have been
infected with Ebola since March.
There is no known cure but some affected people have
recovered after being given an experimental drug,
ZMapp. However, supplies are now exhausted.
Also on Sunday, a British health worker infected with
Ebola in Sierra Leone was flown back to the UK on an
RAF jet. It is the first confirmed case of a Briton
contracting the virus during the current outbreak.
Several people died in the past month after contracting
an unidentified fever in the Equateur region of the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
Numbi said a quarantine zone would be set up in a 100-
km (62-mile) radius in Boende where the cases had
been registered.
He said this marked the seventh outbreak in DR Congo.
The virus was first identified here in 1976 near the
Ebola River.
Numbi added that further tests were being carried out.
On Saturday, Sierra Leone parliament passed a new law
making it a criminal offence to hide Ebola patients.