Health officials on Friday confirmed two Ebola cases in Congo’s South Kivu region, more than 700 km (430 miles) south of where the outbreak was first detected, reported Reuters.
The newly detected Ebola cases open up a new front in the fight against an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that has killed more than 1,800 people over the past year.
On Wednesday, the African Union (AU) urged concerted efforts against the Ebola outbreak in the DRC after the World Health Organization declared the outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern.
“The AU Commission, through the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), is reinforcing its support to the Ebola response in the DRC and other parts of Africa, following the declaration of the outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern,” the AU said in its monthly bulletin issued on Wednesday.
According to figures from the AU, a total of 2,659 Ebola cases were reported as of July 27, in which some 2,565 cases were confirmed while the remaining 94 cases are said to be probable Ebola cases. As per the data, some 767 people have recovered from the deadly disease till now.
The AU stressed its Ebola fighting efforts will not be limited to the DRC but also include countries that share borders with the DRC and other countries within the region. The 55-member pan African bloc said it will post additional experts to these and other countries in the region to support preparedness and surveillance, and response in case there is an outbreak in those countries.
Earlier this week, scientists claimed two of four drugs being trialed in the major outbreak in the DRC have significantly reduced the death rate. The two experimental drugs- REGN-EB3 developed by Regeneron and mAb114- showed survival rates of as much as 90 percent in a clinical trial in Congo.
