GENEVA (Reuters) – Ebola is infecting and killing people in a gold mining area of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and the “complex and dangerous” outbreak still constitutes an international emergency, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
The virus has infected 3,227 people and killed 2,154 of them since the outbreak was declared in August 2018 and went on to became the world’s second worst outbreak, it said.
The WHO’s Emergency Committee on Ebola reviewed the situation since declaring the outbreak an international emergency on July 17. In a statement on Friday, it said the epidemic is “currently concentrated in the Mandima health zone in the Biakato mine health area”.
“This outbreak remains a complex and dangerous outbreak,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference, adding that he had accepted the independent panel’s recommendation to maintain the emergency status.
“But one thing would like to underline, even if this Ebola ends it may come back, because there is instability in eastern DRC and political instability and lack of security. These are pre-conditions,” he said.
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