Ebola kills nine, infects 33 in central Congo

The UN radio station Okapi in the central Democratic Republic of Congo reports that Ebola haemorrhagic fever has killed nine people and infected 21.The incurable, quick-killing, very infectious disease causes rapid bleeding from all bodily orifices.

Ebola haemorrhagic viral fever kills some 90% of all its victims. It was diagnosed among patients in Kampongo, near Mueka in the Western Kasai province, the central Congolese health minister Augustin Mopipi said. Travellers are being warned to stay away from the area. See Radio Okapi report in French here Also see the following excellent video clip here, which in the first few seconds is in Dutch - but then is mostly in English and shows the strenuous working conditions of these gutsy treatment teams in the Congo, which in many regions is a war-zone: This video is very well narrated and explained, albeit it does start in Dutch, it continues mostly in English.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVVQPcMdUnY It's not known which strain of Ebola it is as yet: an outbreak last month in the Bundibugyo District in western Uganda was a brand-new, apparently much more virulent new strain of Ebola which killed all but one of the patients,according to the Centres for Disease Control in the USA. UN-linked journalist executed last month: What makes this latest Congolese outbreak especially serious is the fact that this entire mineral-rich region has been embroiled in ongoing warfare for years between warlord-ruled clans battling for control of its lucrative mining regions. Last month the UN's Congolese radio journalist Didace Namujimbo of radio Okapi was shot dead execution-style outside his home in Bukavo, in South Kivu province. Such unsafe conditions greatly hamper the efforts of medical teams to rapidly seal off the area to stop Ebola from escaping to other regions. The health minister added that analysis from samples taken on site by nine workers from the Belgian aid group Doctors without Borders confirmed that it was Ebola. The first suspected cases were identified on November 29. Whenever such outbreaks occur, the Centres for Disease Controls dispatches emergency teams to the area at once to isolate it from the outside world. No cure for Ebola "MSF is currently putting together an isolation unit with doctors, wearing overalls and masks, to help the people suspected of contracting the virus," said the MSF spokesman Francois Dumont. "As there is no cure for Ebola, medical teams on the ground are giving people palliative treatment and anti-malaria drugs," he added. The DR Congo has been hit by Ebola outbreaks at least three times before. In 1976 the virus killed nearly 500 people on both sides of the country's border with Sudan. One of the greatest dangers of Ebola is that it often causes panic-stricken residents to flee the area - which spreads the outbreak very rapidly. Medical teams always act quickly to seal off areas and warn travellers away from such regions and also stop residents from leaving. Residents also are stopped from carrying out cultural funeral rites such as washing and kissing the bodies, which is normally part of their grieving process in this region. It normally takes at least a month before such outbreaks reside if they can manage to isolate the outbreak. Ebola struck in 1995, killing 245 people in the western province of Bandundu, and a further 26 cases were confirmed in 2007, also in the Western Kasai province, after 187 people died from a host of diseases which including Ebola, malaria, typhoid and dysentery. A major complication over the past ten years has been the co-infection of such deadly viruses with HIV-positive patients, which causes rapid death, as it also does with for instance, Tuberculosis. Its vectors are unknown although virologists and wild-life experts have already spent years examining all the wildlife in the region to establish the carriers for Ebola. Many animals species also die from it - indicating that they are not the carriers. Experts now have narrowed the list of suspects down to various rodent types -- but the strongest suspected carrier may be a specific species of cave bat which migrates between Sudan and areas in the Congo and Uganda, which could explain the seasonal outbreaks in these regions. For outbreaks of Ebola, see CDC listing here