Kinshasa: At least 70 people have died in the northern Democratic Republic of Congo from an outbreak of haemorrhagic gastroenteritis, the World Health Organisation said, denying that the illness was Ebola.
A report from the organisation dated Thursday said 592 people had contracted the disease, of whom 70 died. Five healthcare workers, including one doctor, are among the dead.
“This is not Ebola,” a spokesman for the organisation said.
A local priest who asked not to be named said the illness had affected several villages and estimated the death toll at more than 100.
Kinshasa sent Health Minister Felix Kabange Numbi and a team of experts to the region on Wednesday after reports of several deaths.
The outbreak began in the remote jungle province of Equateur where the first case of Ebola was reported in 1976, prompting speculation that it was the same illness that has killed more than 1350 people in an outbreak now raging in West Africa.
Symptoms of the two diseases are similar; they include vomiting, diarrhoea and internal bleeding. But the fatality rate for this outbreak of haemorrhagic gastroenteritis is much lower than the West Africa Ebola outbreak, about 12 per cent versus close to 60 per cent.
The World Health Organisation, which sent representatives to the area with the Congolese team of experts, said four samples would be flown from the town of Boende on Friday to the capital Kinshasa for further testing.
Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said it had also sent a team to Equateur province to assess the situation.
Reuters