Ebola Confirmed in Northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo

An Ebola infection has been confirmed in the northwestern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—where the disease is spreading—marking the first case outside the six previously affected northeastern provinces.

According to Reuters, Jean-Jacques Muyembe, head of the DRC's National Institute for Biomedical Research (INRB), stated that a man who died on the 8th in Guカka, Sud-Ubangi Province, in the country's northwest, tested positive for Ebola.

The man reportedly spent the past three weeks traveling from South Kivu Province in the northeast—an Ebola outbreak area—passing through Rwanda and Uganda before returning to the DRC, and then traveling through Ebola-affected regions such as Ituri and Tshopo provinces to reach his final destination.

Authorities expressed concern that because he traveled by road and river, the number of contacts could be quite large, potentially exposing neighboring provinces and neighboring countries to risk.

In the DRC, which declared an Ebola outbreak on May 15, a total of 6,942 people had been infected with Ebola as of the 9th of this month, with 3,349 of them reported dead.

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
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