The WHO is working with the DRC government to control the outbreak, with more than 100 contacts of the deceased traced so far.
A second person has died this week from Ebola in North Kivu province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the health ministry and the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement.
A 60-year-old woman who died Wednesday in the district of Biena had an affair with a woman who also died after contracting Ebola and was married to a survivor of the previous major outbreak, according to the statement.
The DRC health ministry has deployed a team in the area and is tracking more than 100 contacts of the two women in the Biena and Katwa health areas, according to the statement.
Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s regional director for Africa, stressed on Thursday during a briefing that the UN health agency was working in coordination with the DRC government to prevent the spread of the disease.
The two Ebola cases were detected almost three months after the DRC announced the end of the eleven outbreak hundreds of kilometers away, in the northwestern province of Equateur, which infected 130 people and kill 55.
This outbreak overlapped with an earlier one in the east, from August 1, 2018 to June 25, 2020, which killed more than 2,200 people, the second in the history of the disease and the deadliest in the DRC.
The last person declared recovered from Ebola in Ecuador was on October 16.
The widespread use of Ebola vaccines, administered to more than 40,000 people, helped curb the disease.
Over the past year, two Ebola vaccines have been approved and distributed, including one by the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson, which has also produced a COVID-19 vaccine that will only need one vaccine and can be stored at room temperature. regular refrigeration.
The emergence of more cases of Ebola could complicate efforts to eradicate COVID-19, which has infected 23,600 people and killed 681 in the DRC.
A vaccination campaign against COVID is expected to begin during the first half of this year.
Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicines, said during the WHO briefing that there was no reason to prevent the distribution and administration of effective vaccines for both Ebola and VOCID -19.
Ebola is a hemorrhagic fever caused by a virus that is spread through contact with body fluids. In extreme cases, it causes fatal hemorrhages of the internal organs, mouth, eyes or ears.
The average mortality rate from Ebola is about 50%, but it can increase to 90% in some epidemics, according to the WHO.
The virus that causes Ebola is believed to live in bats.