Congo says confirmed Ebola cases rise to 956, including 247 deaths
KINSHASA: The Democratic Republic of Congo said on Saturday the number of confirmed Ebola cases in the country had risen to 956, including 247 deaths. On Friday, confirmed cases were at 933, and deaths were 245.
At least 30 people have died since the start of May in one camp for displaced civilians in northeastern Congo, a death rate that camp officials said was unprecedented, with some confirmed to have died from Ebola in a sign the disease could be spreading fast there.
It was not possible to confirm the causes of all the deaths because patients or their relatives in Kigonze camp in Bunia — the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo — had until Thursday refused testing, a camp spokesperson and aid organization Caritas said.
However, all had symptoms including headaches, fever and vomiting, which are associated with Ebola, a camp spokesperson, a bereaved father, three aid sources and a civil society leader told Reuters.
“People didn’t just die like this before,” camp spokesperson Desire Grodya Bapi told Reuters. The deaths in Kigonze, which has more than 15,000 residents, raise fears that Ebola may be circulating undetected among eastern Congo’s over 5 million displaced people, with resistance to testing compounding the challenge posed by severely limited sanitation measures.
