Health officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo say more than twenty patients being held in a treatment centre have fled.
The patients were being monitored for possible Ebola disease before protesters attacked the centre on Thursday.
Protesters from the opposition reportedly got angry that elections have been canceled in regions considered strongholds of the opposition.
Elections are to be held in March instead of the initially scheduled December 30 in Beni and Butembo in the east. These areas continue to battle with the Ebola outbreak.
The health ministry said patients fled the centre during the violence in a holding centre in the Beni region. Beni region is the epicentre of this latest outbreak.
The World Health Organization has signalled that the current Ebola outbreak in the DR Congo is getting out of control.
The global body has said that the outbreak is “now second largest historically. A sad toll, with too many families losing loved ones.”
So far “426 cases including 245 deaths” have been recorded, an official briefing from the WHO said. Fighting the outbreak in Beni has also become a challenge due to ongoing conflict there.
The DR Congo outbreak only comes second to the outbreak recorded in West Africa between 2013 and 2016 which killed over 11,000 people.
The current outbreak is the second to hit the central African country after the previous outbreak was declared over.
The Ebola virus which is transmitted by bats after detection in DRC was named after the Ebola River. Ebola leads to internal and external bleeding which can cause damage done to blood vessels.
Source: Africafeeds.com
