The Congolese health minister announced the opening of three treatment centres in the Ituri region in eastern Congo on Sunday evening as he visited the region amid the ongoing Ebola outbreak.
“We know that the hospitals are already under stress because of the patients,” said Samuel Roger Kamba, the health minister, while visiting Bunia, the capital and largest city in Ituri. “But we are preparing to have treatment centres at all three sites in order to be able to expand our capabilities.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Ebola disease outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on Sunday, after more than 300 suspected cases and 88 deaths in Congo and two in neighbouring Uganda. Although the outbreak is centred in Ituri, cases have been reported in the capital, Kinshasa, and in Goma, the largest city in eastern Congo.
In a separate statement on X on Sunday, the WHO Regional Office for Africa said that a team of 35 experts from the WHO and the Congolese Ministry of Health had arrived in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, along with 7 tons of emergency medical supplies and equipment.
Ebola is highly contagious and can be contracted via bodily fluids such as vomit, blood, or semen. The disease it causes is rare, but severe and often fatal.
