Congo registers new Ebola case, linked to previous outbreak

The African country registered a new Ebola case on August 17 in the province's Beni health zone in a 46-year-old female who was admitted to the Beni General Hospital in late July and died on August 15 in the intensive care unit, the ministry said on Monday.

Sequencing tests suggest the case is genetically linked to the large outbreak in 2018-2020 that was centered in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, it said. During the large outbreak, 3,470 people were infected and 2,287 were killed.

"With the experience acquired in the management of the Ebola virus disease and with the availability of vaccines and therapeutic molecules, the teams of the provincial health division and the Beni health zone are already at work on the ground to carry out response activities," the ministry said.

On July 4, the DRC declared an end to the latest Ebola outbreak that erupted less than three months ago in Mbandaka, the capital of the northwestern Equateur Province. There were four confirmed cases and one probable case, all of whom died, in the outbreak. It was the third outbreak in the province since 2018 and the country's 14th overall.