Six people killed by Ebola in Congo

7.00pm

BRAZZAVILLE - Six people have died in the past week from the deadly Ebola virus in northwestern Congo Republic, the second outbreak there in two years, a senior health official said today.

Damase Bozongo, director general of health, told Reuters the victims died in Kelle, some 700km north of the capital Brazzaville, near the border with Gabon which was also hit by an Ebola outbreak last year.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said earlier on Friday in Geneva that it had sent a team to the central African country to investigate a suspected outbreak of the virus.

Ebola is spread by infected body fluids and kills anywhere from 50 to 90 percent of its victims through massive internal bleeding, depending on the strain.

The United Nations health agency said the team left Brazzaville on Thursday to investigate 16 deaths in the Mbomo and Kelle districts which could have been caused by the virus.

Kelle and Mbomo are about 60km from the border with neighbouring Gabon.

Bozongo said the six deaths in Kelle were caused by Ebola. "The clinical signs present are without doubt those of the Ebola virus," he said.

There is no known cure for Ebola, a haemorrhagic fever which left at least 73 people dead in Congo and Gabon in an outbreak from October 2001 to February 2002.

"The outbreak last year was sparked after people ate the meat of infected primates," Fadela Chaib, the WHO spokeswoman, told a news briefing in Switzerland on Friday.

"Perhaps the same has occurred this year because in December WHO received reports of dead primates in this region."

In some parts of Africa, villagers exist largely on wild "bush meat", and authorities have urged people to avoid eating monkeys found dead in the forests. Bush meat is also prized in some cities as an expensive delicacy.

The disease was named after a river in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it was discovered in 1976. The worst outbreak was in that country in 1995 when over 250 people died.

- REUTERS

Herald feature: Health