The Ebola virus kills more than 200 people in the DRC

The tenth epidemic of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo infected 326 people in August.

The milestone of 200 deaths has been traversed in the Democratic Republic of Congo since the beginning of the tenth outbreak of Ebola in August. "The cumulative number of cases is 326, of which 291 are confirmed, and 35 are probable. There were 201 deaths altogether," and "98 cases are cured," the Congolese Ministry of Health report said on Saturday.

The tenth epidemic

The previous day, the number of cases was "319 cases and 198 deaths" registered in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces, exceeding the level of the first epidemic recorded in the DRC in 1976 in Yambuku (318 cases and 224 deaths) in Ecuador .

The tenth epidemic of Ebola broke out on August 1 in Mangina, North Kivu Province. The epicenter of the epidemic quickly moved to Beni, the shelter of Ugandan Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels and many other armed groups active in the Eastern DRC.

Attacks of armed groups

On Friday, the head of UN peacekeeping missions urged these armed groups not to halt efforts to combat Ebola in this part of the country at the end of a joint visit with the WHO Director-General.

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In a special message on Friday, Congolese Health Minister Dr. Oly Ilunga said that "no other epidemic in the world was as complex as the one we are currently living" in the Beni region (northern Kivu ).

The teams responsible for conducting response activities "faced threats, physical attacks, repeated destruction of their equipment and kidnapping," he said. "Two of our colleagues in the rapid response medical unit have even lost their lives in an attack."