Health ministry officials in Democratic Republic of Congo have announced that the Ebola treatment centre located in the district of Katwa has reopened.
The centre is situated at the epicentre of the current outbreak in the eastern part of the country. The centre was attacked in February by unknown gunmen.
The attack forced officials to close the treatment centre run by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). Staff after the attack evacuated patients.
DR Congo’s health ministry said on Saturday that the centre is now operating once more.
The statement said the centre for now “is managed by the ministry in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UNICEF”.
New outbreak
Meanwhile the deadly Ebola disease has now been recorded in a new city in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The city of Bunia which is the latest to report the Ebola infection has a population of nearly one million.
Bunia is the second-largest city in eastern DR Congo. Congo’s health ministry said the person that carried the virus is a six-month-old baby.
The baby’s parents are however in “good health” according to officials.
In February a group of international public health experts urged the World Health Organization to declare an Ebola emergency in the Congo.
It wanted the W.H.O to consider Congo’s Ebola outbreak an international public health emergency.
The World Health Organization says the current Ebola outbreak in the DR Congo is getting out of control.
The DR Congo outbreak only comes second to the outbreak recorded in West Africa. That outbreak was between 2013 and 2016 killing over 11,000 people.
The Ebola virus is transmitted by bats. It was named after the Ebola River when it was detected in DRC.
Source: Africafeeds.com
