{"id":806449,"date":"2026-05-19T02:27:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T02:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/806449\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T02:27:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T02:27:13","slug":"rare-type-of-ebola-in-congo-has-killed-nearly-120-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/806449\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare type of Ebola in Congo has killed nearly 120 people"},"content":{"rendered":"

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) \u2014 Congo will open three Ebola<\/a> treatment centers in the eastern Ituri province, and the World Health Organization<\/a> is sending a team of experts to the country, following an outbreak of a rare type of the virus that has killed nearly 120 people.<\/p>\n

An American doctor in Congo is among the newly confirmed cases of the virus with no approved vaccines or medicines, Congolese officials said Monday, as details emerged about the government\u2019s delayed response to the outbreak.<\/p>\n

The WHO on Sunday declared the Ebola outbreak<\/a> a public health emergency<\/a> of international concern. As of Monday, there were over 118 deaths and 300 suspected cases in Ituri and North Kivu provinces, and one death and one suspected case in neighboring Uganda<\/a>. Experts say the number of cases is likely to rise as health officials conduct more surveillance.<\/p>\n

The Bundibugyo virus spread undetected for at least a few weeks, health experts and aid workers said. Cases have now been confirmed in Bunia, North Kivu\u2019s rebel-held capital of Goma, Mongbwalu, Butembo and Nyakunde.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause early tests looked for the wrong strain of Ebola, we got false negatives and lost weeks of response time,\u201d said Matthew M. Kavanagh, director of the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Policy and Politics. \u201cWe are playing catch-up against a very dangerous pathogen.\u201d<\/p>\n

He criticized the Trump administration\u2019s earlier decision to withdraw from the WHO and make deep cuts in foreign aid \u2014 \u201cthe exact surveillance system meant to catch these viruses early,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

After delayed response, Congolese prepare<\/p>\n

The severity of the symptoms and the rising caseload are fueling a growing sense of panic in the neighborhoods of Bunia.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the consequences of Ebola, I know what it\u2019s like,\u201d said No\u00ebla Lumo, a resident of Bunia. She previously lived in Beni, a region hit by former Ebola outbreaks. As soon as she heard about the latest outbreak, Lumo began making protective masks by hand. <\/p>\n

Congo has said the first person died from the virus on April 24 in Bunia, and the body was repatriated to the Mongbwalu health zone, a mining area with a large population.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat caused the Ebola outbreak to escalate,\u201d said Congo\u2019s health minister, Samuel Roger Kamba.<\/p>\n

When another person fell ill on April 26, samples were sent to Kinshasa for testing, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control. On May 5, the WHO was alerted of about 50 deaths in Mongbwalu, including four health workers. The first case was confirmed on May 14.<\/p>\n

Samples from Bunia were initially tested for the more common type of Ebola, Zaire, Congolese officials said. They came back negative, said Dr. Richard Kitenge, the Health Ministry Incident Manager for Ebola.<\/p>\n

The first confirmation of Ebola came on May 14, and Bundibugyo was confirmed the next day. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation is quite worrying and is evolving pretty quickly,\u201d Esther Sterk with the Medecins Sans Frontieres aid group told the AP. \u201cIt was detected quite late.\u201d But she said that was often the case with outbreaks of Ebola, which has similar symptoms to other tropical diseases.<\/p>\n

An American doctor tests positive<\/p>\n

The American doctor is among the cases in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province in eastern Congo, said Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, medical director of the country\u2019s National Institute of Bio-Medical Research.<\/p>\n

Dr. Peter Stafford had been treating patients at a hospital there when he developed symptoms, Serge, the organization he works for, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Three others employees of Serge were working at the same hospital \u2014 including Stafford\u2019s wife \u2014 but are not showing symptoms.<\/p>\n

Seven Americans, including the one who tested positive, are being transported to Germany for monitoring, Dr. Satish Pillai of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a call with reporters. Pillai said the American developed symptoms over the weekend.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n AP AUDIO: An American doctor is among the newest cases in rare Ebola outbreak in Congo\n <\/p>\n

AP correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports on mounting international concern over the Ebola outbreak in Congo.<\/p>\n

CDC officials did not immediately respond to follow-up questions about the American doctor\u2019s condition.<\/p>\n

The CDC, which has said the risk to Americans was low, issued travel advisories urging Americans traveling in Congo<\/a> and Uganda<\/a> to avoid people with symptoms like fever, muscle pain and rash.<\/p>\n

The CDC said that, for the next 30 days, the U.S. would ban entry of all foreign nationals who had visited Congo, Uganda and South Sudan over the past three weeks, and take measures to identify individuals with Ebola symptoms at ports of entry.<\/p>\n

This is a rare type of Ebola<\/p>\n

Ebola is highly contagious<\/a> and can be contracted via bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen. The disease it causes is rare but severe and often fatal.<\/p>\n

\u201cEbola is very much a disease of compassion in that it impacts the people who are more likely to be taking care of sick folks,\u201d said Dr. Craig Spencer, an associate professor at the Brown University School of Public Health who survived Ebola more than a decade ago after contracting the disease in Guinea.<\/p>\n

\u2060\u201cI suspect that the number of cases is going to go up pretty dramatically in the coming weeks as we do better surveillance and end up finding there were a lot more cases and probably a lot more deaths than we recognized,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Although more than 20 Ebola outbreaks have taken place in Congo and Uganda since 1976, this is only the third time that the Bundibugyo virus has been detected.<\/p>\n

The U.S. CDC says it causes fever, headache, muscle pain, weakness, diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain and unexplained bleeding or bruising.<\/p>\n

The Bundibugyo virus was first detected in Uganda\u2019s Bundibugyo district during a 2007-2008 outbreak that infected 149 people and killed 37. The second time was in 2012, in an outbreak in Isiro, Congo, where 57 cases and 29 deaths were reported.<\/p>\n

The Africa CDC chief, Dr. Jean Kaseya, told Sky News on Sunday he is in \u201cpanic mode\u201d due to a lack of medicines and vaccines, but some candidate treatments are anticipated in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

The region already grapples with a humanitarian crisis<\/p>\n

Ituri\u2019s Mongbwalu is in remote eastern Congo, with poor road networks more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the capital, Kinshasa.<\/p>\n

Eastern Congo<\/a> long has grappled with a humanitarian crisis and the threat of armed groups that have killed dozens and displaced thousands in Ituri in the past year.<\/p>\n

U.N. staff have been asked to work from home and avoid physical contact and crowded areas, said a Bunia-based U.N. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the subject. <\/p>\n

Ituri has over 273,00 displaced people, according to the U.N.<\/p>\n

Rwanda closed its land border with Congo on Sunday. Ugandan authorities said there was no evidence that Ebola was spreading within the country, and said that surveillance has been heightened along its border with Congo.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Pronczuk and McMakin reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writers Evelyne Musambi in Nairobi, Caitlin Kelly in Dakar, Constant Same Bagalwa in Bunia, Congo, and Mike Stobbe in New York, contributed to this report. ___<\/p>\n

This corrects an earlier version of the story to note there is only one confirmed death in Uganda, not two.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

For more on Africa and development: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/africa-pulse<\/a><\/p>\n

The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KINSHASA, Congo (AP) \u2014 Congo will open three Ebola treatment centers in the eastern Ituri province, and the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":806450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[11],"tags":[17993,63643,18596,46861,69,94169,328096,57,210,15006,328097,328094,113507,1060,328095,881,328092,113508,328093,22770,1206,67,132,68,26413,107],"class_list":["post-806449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-centers-for-disease-control-and-prevention","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo","tag-democratic-republic-of-the-congo","tag-disease-outbreaks","tag-donald-trump","tag-ebola-virus","tag-esther-sterk","tag-general-news","tag-health","tag-immunizations","tag-jean-kaseya","tag-jean-jacques-muyembe","tag-kinshasa","tag-medication","tag-peter-stafford","tag-public-health","tag-richard-kitenge","tag-samuel-roger-kamba","tag-satish-pillai","tag-uganda","tag-united-nations","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-world-health-organization","tag-world-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116598882125533133","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}