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DR Congo officials suspect Ebola outbreak has spread

Medical officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo suspect that an Ebola outbreak has spread from the spot where the disease was first identified to a neighboring province, officials said on Friday.

Samples from two cases suspected as Ebola from the Kasai Oriental Province have been sent to a lab in the US for testing, said Benoit Kebela, secretary-general of the health ministry.

Ebola has so far been confirmed only in neighboring Kasai Occidental Province, where at least five samples have tested positive. About 40 samples are still pending.

The WHO stressed no case had been confirmed outside Kasai Occidental.

"In a situation where people are on the lookout and are hypersensitive to anything that sweats and bleeds, we would expect to hear about suspect cases like this," said Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman in Geneva.

At least 167 people have died -- though it is not clear how many of Ebola -- in the affected region of Kasai Occidental over the last four months, and nearly 400 have fallen ill, according to health officials.

Diagnosis is difficult. Cases of shigella, a diarrhea-like disease, and typhoid have been confirmed among those sickened in Kasai Occidental. At the early stages, both diseases have symptoms similar to Ebola.

It is the first major outbreak of Ebola in years. Teams have arrived from the US Centers for Disease Control to help and the WHO has put out a call for doctors.

"There are lots of suspected cases because of the fear that has taken over Kasai Occidental and almost the whole country, but all fevers with blood are not Ebola," Kebela said.

Kebela said the latest samples came from the area around the village of Mwene Ditu, about 100km south of the provincial capital of Mbuji-Mayi and more than 300km from the village of Kampungu -- the site of the confirmed cases. A train line that runs between the two provinces passes through Mwene Ditu, but Kebela said he did not know of any contact between the infected people in Mwene Ditu and people in Kampungu.

The government has quarantined the area around Kampungu.

Ebola quickly kills up to 90 percent of those infected through massive blood loss, and has no cure or treatment. It is spread through direct contact with the blood or secretions of an infected person, or objects that have been contaminated with the infected secretions.

The last major Ebola outbreak in DR Congo struck in Kikwit in 1995, killing 245 people. Kikwit is about 300km from the site of the current outbreak.

The WHO says more than 1,000 people have died of Ebola since the virus was first identified in 1976. Primates, hunted by many central Africans for food, can carry the virus.
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