As the world is still grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday identified a third case of another deadly virus in their country: Ebola.
The World Health Organization said the patient, a 48-year-old man, is a “high-risk contact” of the first patient, who died April 21 in the northwestern Equateur Province.
“Responders have identified 444 contacts and continue to monitor their health,” the WHO African Region tweeted.
The WHO declared a new outbreak of Ebola last month.
The second patient — the 25-year-old sister-in-law of the first patient — died April 25.
WHO said it has rushed to vaccinate 281 persons, including 243 contacts of known patients, against Ebola.
The virus has struck the DRC more than a dozen times since its discovery near the Ebola River in 1976.
A particularly bad outbreak in 2018-2020 killed 2,287 people.
The outbreak hit DRC a few years after the end of the West African Ebola outbreak that killed more than 11,000 people.
