The Democratic Republic of the Congo declared a new Ebola virus disease outbreak May 8. The country confirmed two laboratory-tested cases of Ebola.
The Ministry of Health of Democratic of the Congo has collected more samples for testing. Ebola is endemic to the Congo, with the last Ebola outbreak occurring in 2017. However, it did not spread due to quick action by the country's government, the World Health Organization and several other partners.
The WHO is currently working with the Congo's government and released $1 million from its Contingency Fund for Emergencies to scale and mobilize an emergency response to contain the current outbreak. It has set up its Incident Management System and will soon deploy epidemiologists, logisticians, clinicians, infection prevention and control experts as well as various support teams to the region.
The 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa resulted in approximately 11,325 deaths according to the CDC. It affected numerous countries around the world — in the U.S., New York City and Dallas were affected — but did not impact the Congo. However, the Congo has experienced nine Ebola outbreaks since the virus was discovered in the country in 1976.
Ebola causes numerous symptoms, including fever, severe headache, muscle pain and diarrhea.