Congo Ebola Case Triggers Fears Of New Outbreak

The World Health Organization warned Ebola could be spreading in the Democratic Republic of the Congo after a woman died of the disease.

Health officials there confirmed a woman died earlier February in Butembo. More than 70 people had come into contact with her while she was contagious but no other cases have been identified, organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Health officials are concerned Ebola's resurgence could further strain Congo's health system, especially as it manages the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Associated Press.

The confirmed case is the fourth in under three years. The infected patient's husband who likely infected her was a virus survivor, Minister of Health Eteni Longondo said.

Ebola can be contracted through bodily fluids. It can live in the semen of male survivors for more than three years, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Longondo said the government had begun tracing everyone who came in contact with the victim to "eradicate the epidemic as soon as possible."

The Butembo branch of the National Institute of Biomedical Research said Butembo was one of the epicenters of a previous outbreak. It said it wasn't unusual for sporadic cases to occur following an outbreak. 

The organization said this case was the 12th in Congo since the virus was first discovered there in 1976.

"While there is hope that this early identification of an infection may help with quickly containing this outbreak, back-to-back Ebola outbreaks and COVID-19 has stretched Congo's health systems to the limit and this could put far greater strain on an already exasperated system," according to Dr. Jason Kindrachuk, an assistant professor at the department of medical microbiology and infectious diseases at Canada's University of Manitoba.

The organization said the average case fatality rate is 50% but ranged from 25% to 90% in past outbreaks.

The Kivu Ebola epidemic that began in August 2018 eventually became the biggest Ebola outbreak in Congo. By November the epidemic had become the second-largest outbreak anywhere. It killed 2,299 of its more than 3,000 victims before ending in June 2020.