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KINSHASA: Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have declared a new outbreak of the Ebola virus, which has killed 15 people since the end of August, the health minister said Thursday.
The new outbreak is in central Kasai Province, Samuel Roger Kamba told reporters in the capital Kinshasa.
The last outbreak of Ebola in the vast central African nation was three years ago and killed six people.
Twenty-eight suspected cases have been recorded in Kasai Province, according to provisional figures, with the first case reported on August 20 in a 34-year-old pregnant woman who was admitted to hospital.
“It’s the 16th outbreak recorded in our country,” Kamba said.
Case numbers are likely to increase, according to the World Health Organization, which has dispatched experts alongside a Congolese response team to Kasai Province.
The DRC has a stockpile of treatments for this viral haemorrhagic fever as well as 2,000 doses of vaccines that will be moved to Kasai from the capital Kinshasa.
“We’re acting with determination to rapidly halt the spread of the virus and protect communities,” said WHO Regional Director for Africa Mohamed Janabi.
First identified in 1976 and thought to have crossed over from bats, Ebola is a deadly viral disease spread through direct contact with bodily fluids, causing severe bleeding and organ failure.
The deadliest outbreak in the DRC — whose population numbers more than 100 million — killed nearly 2,300 people between 2018 and 2020.
Six strains of Ebola exist.
Health authorities say the Zaire strain — for which there is a vaccine — is the cause of the new outbreak.
“Fortunately we have a vaccine for this Zaire strain but to deploy it we need to ensure the logistics,” Health Minister Kamba said.
Four times the size of France, the DRC has poor infrastructure, with often limited and poorly maintained lines of communication.

PARIS: One of the European Union’s most senior officials on Thursday called the war in Gaza a “genocide,” ramping up criticism of Israel and slamming the 27-nation bloc for failing to act to stop it.
“The genocide in Gaza exposes Europe’s failure to act and speak with one voice,” European Commission vice president Teresa Ribera said during a speech in Paris.
Top EU officials have so far shied away from calling Israel’s actions in the territory a “genocide.” One spokesman said it was for the courts to make a legal judgment on whether genocide was happening.
The EU has struggled to take steps over the war in Gaza due to deep divisions between member states pushing for action against Israel and those backing the country.
The splits are also present inside the EU’s executive, where Spanish commissioner Ribera has expressed frustration over the failure to push on the issue.
Ribera’s use of the term “genocide” could put more pressure on EU commission chief Ursula von der Leyen to take a tougher stance against Israel.
Von der Leyen’s commission in July proposed cutting funding to Israeli start-ups over the war in Gaza, but so far the move has not received the backing of a majority of countries.
Nearly two years into the devastating conflict, Israel has built up its forces in recent days, with troops operating on the outskirts of Gaza City, the Palestinian territory’s largest urban center.
The United Nations estimates that nearly one million people live in and around Gaza City in the territory’s north, where it has declared famine.