867 cases of Ebola confirmed since outbreak in July 2018, Health Ministry says
The death toll from Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo has risen to 522 since the start of an outbreak in late July last year, the country’s Health Ministry said on Friday.
Among 932 cases of reported hemorrhagic fever, 867 were confirmed to be Ebola cases, according to the ministry.
Some 36 people are still getting treatments for the disease while 309 have recovered from the virus in the Central African country.
At least 65 people died following hemorrhagic fever, but it couldn’t be verified whether they died of Ebola because they were buried without an autopsy.
A total of 87,985 people were administered anti-Ebola vaccines in the country as part of a campaign that began Aug. 8.
Ebola — a tropical fever which first appeared in 1976 in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo — can be transmitted to humans from wild animals.
It can also reportedly spread through contact with the body fluids of infected persons or of those who have succumbed to the virus.
Ebola caused global alarm in 2014 when the world’s worst outbreak began in West Africa, killing more than 11,300 people and infecting an estimated 28,600 as it swept through Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
