DR Congo says Ebola outbreak eases in areas despite death toll topping 4,000
Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) said Friday that the Ebola outbreak has eased in some areas with no new cases reported in more health zones for weeks despite that the total death toll has surpassed 4,000, Xinhua reports.
"We are no longer talking about outbreaks at the provincial level, but outbreaks concentrated in individual health zones," Health Minister Roger Kamba told a press briefing in Kinshasa.
Data released Friday showed that the outbreak has claimed 4,018 lives among 8,300 confirmed cases across seven provinces, with an overall case fatality rate of 48.4 percent. A total of 2,162 patients have recovered.
Of the 63 health zones affected across seven provinces since the outbreak began, 12 have reported no new cases for 42 days, Kamba said.
"The situation remains highly variable, but we can see that the number of health zones reporting cases has decreased," he said.
Despite signs of localized improvement in the DRC's Ebola outbreak situation, international medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres warned Thursday that the actual toll was likely higher than officially reported due to gaps in disease surveillance and case detection.
The Ebola outbreak declared in May has become the largest and deadliest ever recorded in the DRC and the second largest Ebola outbreak worldwide, after the 2014-2016 one in West Africa.
Earlier, it was reported Japan had been hit with a flu outbreak, affecting all 47 prefectures.