An ambulance from the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) drives through a street in the town of Beni in North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, August 2, 2018. REUTERS/Samuel Mambo
August 3, 2018
GENEVA (Reuters) – The death and unsafe burial of a 65-year-old woman in Mangina in Democratic Republic of Congo was the critical event that set alarm bells ringing in the latest Ebola outbreak in late July, the World Health Organization said on Friday.
WHO’s emergency response chief Peter Salama said seven of the woman’s immediate family later also died from Ebola-like symptoms, and potential cases were now being traced in 10 localities.
Apart from Mangina in North Kivu province, there were now suspected cases in the local town of Beni and neighboring Ituri province, Salama told a regular U.N. briefing in Geneva.
(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Alison Williams)
