Funzionari dell’Organizzazione Mondiale della Sanità hanno reso noto che sette nuovi casi della mortale febbra da virus Ebola sono stati confermati venerdì nella Repubblica Democratica del Congo. Il totale dei casi verificati sale così a 24 positivi su 53 pazienti controllari. Tutti e sette i nuovi casi sono stati registrati nella zona di Kampungu, circa 150 chilometri a nord-ovest della capitale provinciale di Kananga, epicentro dell’attuale epidemia. Nella stessa campagna di controlli sono stati riscontrati anche cinque casi di febbre tifoide e un caso di dissenteria Shigella nel West Kasai. I primi sintomi della malattia – febbre alta, diarrea con sangue ed emorragie – erano stati segnalati nella regione di Kampungu il 27 aprile scorso. Due laboratori medici installati a Mweka e Luebo dai servizi sanitari canadesi e statunitensi hanno svolto i controlli per stabilire l’entità dell’epidemia. La buona notizia è che non sono stati riscontrati nuovi casi negli ultimi tre giorni. La cattiva notizia è che la malattia ha un periodo di inclubazione di ventuno giorni, per cui occorre che passino due periodi di ventuno giorni senza nuovi contagi prima che si possa dire che l’epidemia sia cessata.

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

Seven new cases of the deadly Ebola virus have been confirmed on Friday in the central Democratic Republic of Congo, taking the total number for the region to 24, WHO and government officials announced.

"The total number of confirmed positive Ebola cases are at 24 out of a total of 53 patients tested," said the DRC health ministry, adding that six of these have already died.

"The seven cases confirmed all come from the Kampungu area," the epicentre of the deadly haemorraghic fever located 150km north-west of Kananga, the provincial capital, according to a ministry statement.

The WHO said that in addition to the Ebola cases found since September 11, five cases of typhoid fever and a case of Shigella dysentery were confirmed in West Kasai, on the Kananga-Luebo-Kampungu-Mweka axis.

Symptoms of the virus -- high temperature, bloody diarrhoea, visible haemorrhaging -- were first seen on April 27 in the Kampungu region of West Kasai.

Two mobile health laboratories in Mweka and Luebo installed by the Canadian health service and the United States-based CDC (Centres for Disease Control) conducted the tests, according to a statement released by the CDC.

In their first analyses, the two laboratories indicated that the Ebola virus was limited to the area around Kampungu. Tests made on four patients in Kananga and five others around Mweka were found to be negative.

The chief of the entire inter-agency and inter-ministerial operation said in a press conference from Kinshasa that the number of suspected cases had diminished in recent days.

"We are between zero and two cases per day on average. We have not seen any new case for the past three days," said Benoit Kebela, adding that the seven new Ebola cases were not "new cases", but those "suspected cases accumulated" over the last few days.

"One must be prudent. We have had a reprieve but we cannot say that we are at the end of the tunnel. There is a 21-day incubation period" for Ebola, he said. He added that the epidemic will have ended only after two 21-day incubation periods without a new case have passed.