The Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday confirmed the first Ebola case in Goma, a densely populated area close to the Rwandan border. Ebola reaching Goma has raised concerns the virus could spread quicker in the area which is home to more than a million people.
According to the Congo health ministry, the patient tested positive for the virus was a priest who became infected during a visit to the town of Butembo, 200 km (124 miles) north of Goma, where he had been with people with Ebola. The pastor first developed symptoms last week before taking a bus to Goma on Friday.
The ministry said chances of Ebola spreading in Goma is low as the infected patient was identified and put into isolation in a very short span of time.
“Due to the speed with which the patient has been identified and isolated, as well as the identification of all passengers from Butembo, the risk of spreading to the rest of the city of Goma remains low,” the health ministry said in a statement, reported BBC.
The officials have located the bus driver and 18 other passengers who would be vaccinated on Monday.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said that the confirmation of the case was not positive news, but it was long anticipated.
“We have been doing intensive work to prepare Goma so that any case is identified and responded to immediately,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the agency’s director-general, posted on Twitter.
A health ministry bulletin released on Saturday claims that the latest Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has so far killed 1,655 people and 694 have been cured. And 160,239 people have been vaccinated, it added.
The efforts to tackle the outbreak in DRC have been hampered due to militia attacks on treatment centers, in which some staff has been killed, and the hostility of some local people to the medical teams.
