Freetown (AFP) - The Democratic Republic of Congo confirmed its two first cases of Ebola this year, but claimed they were unrelated to the epidemic raging in four countries of West Africa.

The UN's World Health Organization (WHO) meanwhile announced that one of its health experts, an epidemiologist, had been infected while working in Sierra Leone.

Also on Sunday, Britain's first Ebola patient, a male nurse who contracted the disease in Sierra Leone, was admitted to a London hospital.

The sobering news of Ebola's spread came as UN officials pledged to step up efforts against the lethal tropical virus, which has infected more than 2,600 and killed 1,427, according to WHO figures released Friday.

In Kinshasa, Congolese Health Minister Felix Kabange Numbi said that two of eight samples taken from victims of a mystery fever had tested positive for Ebola.

"The results are positive. The Ebola virus is confirmed in DRC," Kabange told AFP.

Speaking later on public television, he said the confirmation marked the seventh outbreak of Ebola in DR Congo, where the virus was first identified in 1976 near the Ebola River.

But he said the two new cases had "no link to [the epidemic] raging in West Africa" and were different strains from one another.

Authorities immediately imposed a quarantine around the affected area in Equateur province near Jera, more than 1,200 kilometres (750 miles) northeast of the Congolese capital Kinshasa.

Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders said it was sending a crew to help handle patients in the area.

The UN's World Health Organization gave no details of its infected expert, but said the person was "receiving the best care possible" and that it was considering a medical evacuation.



- British patient not 'seriously unwell' -



Meanwhile, the British nurse who contracted the virus in Sierra Leone arrived at Britain's only specialist Ebola isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

The patient, who is not "seriously unwell" according to the Department of Health, was evacuated in a specially equipped C17 Royal Air Force military plane before being taken by military ambulance across London flanked by a police escort.







http://news.yahoo.com/un-vows-central-role-fighting-exceptional-ebola-epidemic-190628985.html

Ebola in Congo? That's a first this news is coming out.
OP what's ur source biko and how was the issue resolved?
If its a less lethal strain that caused their attack, were the victims able to survive it?

Lobatan

I saw the news on BBC focus on Africa this evening

I saw the news on BBC focus on Africa this evening
http://m.bbc.com/news/world-africa-28922290

Might be a pointer to a migratory animal passing on the virus.

And to think that these congolese pulled out of AFCON qualifier match with us on account of fears of contracting Ebola here in Naija?

Their's is the Sudan strain which is quite different from the Zaire strain ravaging the west coast of Africa hence it was not a direct spread.