Ebola outbreak spreads to two new Congo provinces

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has spread to two more northeastern provinces, Haut-Uele and Tshopo, the country's public health institute has said.

The number of confirmed Ebola cases across the country rose to 1,926, including 702 deaths, official data showed late last night.

Four cases were recorded in Tshopo, including two deaths, with one death confirmed in Haut-Uele, as of Saturday.

The latest Ebola outbreak, Congo's 17th, was declared on 15 May and has been largely concentrated in Ituri province, with cases also reported in North Kivu and South Kivu provinces.

The often fatal viral disease spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids from infected people or animals and causes symptoms that can include high fever, vomiting and internal ⁠and external bleeding.

Congolese health authorities had started tracing people potentially exposed to Ebola in Tshopo and Haut-Uele in June, but until now the two provinces had not been included in the government's daily reports.

"Although current investigations suggest that all cases detected in these two provinces are primarily imported from Niania in Ituri, it is necessary and appropriate ... to consider these two provinces as an epidemic zone," the National Institute of Public Health said in its report dated 11 July.

Tshopo's provincial capital is Kisangani, one of Congo's largest cities. Haut-Uele shares borders with South Sudan and the Central African Republic.

A senior World Health Organization official said last week that the true scale of the outbreak could be two to four times larger than official data indicates, because four out of five new Ebola cases have no known link to existing patients.

An American Ebola patient has arrived in Germany for treatment, the health ministry in Berlin said today, weeks after another US citizen infected with Ebola was treated in Berlin.

The patient landed in Frankfurt overnight and was transferred to the city's university hospital, the ministry said.

The head of the World Health Organization said the man was a "humanitarian worker" who had been in Bunia.