Congo Ebola outbreak: Nurse becomes 27th victim to die from deadly virus
A nurse became the 27th victim of the deadly Ebola virus in Democratic Republic of Condo, country’s health ministers revealed on Monday.
The nurse's death brings the toll to 27, with 49 cases of hemorrhagic fever, of which 22 have been confirmed as Ebola, 21 are probable and six suspected.
The country on Monday begun a vaccination campaign in three health zones affected by the deadly outbreak.
The nurse died in the town of Bikoro, where the DRC's Ministry of Health first identified cases of Ebola earlier this month.
By Thursday last week, the viral hemorrhagic fever had spread to Mbandaka, a northwestern city of 1.2 million people connected to Bikoro via the Congo River.
Health officials are worried that Mbandaka's location on the Congo River, a major thoroughfare which makes up the border between the DRC and the Republic of Congo, could see Ebola spread to the capital Kinshasa downstream.
In a hopeful sign, two patients who were confirmed as positive for Ebola have recovered, and have left the hospital 'with a medical certificate attesting that they've recovered and can no longer transmit the disease because they have developed antibodies against Ebola,' he said.
Ebola, however, does in many cases remain longer in semen, and therefore can be transmitted through sexual contact for some months after recovery.
Congo's health delegation, including the health minister and representatives of the World Health Organization and the United Nations have arrived in Mbandaka to launch the vaccination campaign Monday.
The vaccine is still in the test stages, but it was effective toward the end of the Ebola epidemic that killed more than 11,300 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia from 2014 to 2016.
