More than 1500 people have been killed by Ebola in the ongoing epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The outbreak is the second-largest in the history of the disease. The situation in DRC is more complicated than the initial outbreak location in West Africa, as it is occurring in a war zone. The Ebola crisis in the DRC is accelerating at a ‘very intense speed,’ according to MSF. ‘It’s more than 2000 cases and the mortality rate is nearly 70% which is an absolute crisis,’ said Claire Manera, a field coordinator for the international humanitarian non-profit Medecins Sans Frontieres. The current flare-up is nation’s 10th such outbreak with a significant spike in new cases in recent weeks. Ebola is a virus that initially causes sudden fever, intense weakness, muscle pain and a sore throat. It progresses to vomiting, diarrhea and both internal and external bleeding. People are infected when they have direct contact through broken skin, or the mouth and nose, with the blood, vomit, feces or bodily fluids of someone with Ebola. Patients tend to die from dehydration and multiple organ failure. The current outbreak began in August 2018 and the World Health Organization (WHO) says at least 1,510 people had died as of June 24, 2019. Thats 70% death rate of those infected. This week, the virus crossed the border into Uganda. Only once before has an outbreak continued to grow more than eight months after it began, that was the epidemic in West Africa between 2013-16, which killed 11,310 people.
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