DR Congo: Ebola responders under pressure as outbreak expands

As the deadly Ebola disease outbreak reached an eighth province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), investigators pursued all leads on Thursday to assess the risk of the disease spreading in Nigeria.Authorities in Abuja confirmed their first case of infection in an individual arriving from Uganda, which borders the worst-hit provinces in DRC.“The source of exposure is still not known and the travel history of the patient is being pieced together now in terms of her movement from Uganda up to Nigeria,” said Dr Patrick Otim, from the UN World Health Organization (WHO)’s Emergency Response programme, in an online update. “This is rapidly evolving. As we get more information, we’ll try to determine where she was exposed. And then it’s at that point where we can say whether there is any transmission happening.”Nigeria is the fifth country this year after DRC, France, Uganda and Kenya to confirm the presence of Ebola disease caused by Bundibugyo virus. The original DRC outbreak was declared in mid-May where it has led to more than 4,600 deaths and a total of 9,552 confirmed infections. Around six in 10 of these deaths have occurred outside health centres, indicating the contin...