Congo Ebola outbreak started months earlier, reveals WHO

Bunia, Aug 10: The fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record started in February, months before it was officially declared in mid-May, the World Health Organisation said Monday as responders in eastern Congo struggle to catch up. The WHO regional director for Africa, Dr Mohamed Yakub Janabi, told a news conference that sequencing indicated the outbreak’s start. He said some cases early on were wrongly attributed to malaria and typhoid. “So we are chasing the virus, the virus is ahead of us,” Janabi said. Confirmed cases of Ebola in this outbreak have reached 4,200, including over 1,900 deaths, according to the latest government figuresw. (AP)