Death toll at 405 from Ebola in DR Congo

By Alaattin Dogru

DAKAR

The death toll now stands at 405 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from Ebola since the start of an outbreak in late July last year, the country’s Health Ministry said Monday.

Among 733 cases of reported hemorrhagic fever, 679 were confirmed to be Ebola cases, the ministry said.

Eighteen people are still getting treatments for the disease while 256 have recovered from the virus in the Central African country.

Some 54 people died following hemorrhagic fever, but it could not be verified whether they died of Ebola because they were buried without an autopsy.

A total of 68,477 people were administered anti-Ebola vaccines in the country as part of a campaign that began Aug. 8.

Ebola -- a tropical fever which first appeared in 1976 in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo -- can be transmitted to humans from wild animals.

It can also reportedly spread through contact with fluids of infected persons or of those who have succumbed to the virus.

Ebola caused global alarm in 2014 when the world's worst outbreak began in West Africa, killing more than 11,300 people and infecting an estimated 28,600 as it swept through Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.