Disease

Ebola Outbreak in DRC - Update

The death toll in the Democratic Republic of Congo from the Ebola virus has reached 31 people. The virus was confirmed in the northern region of Djera, a collection of villages, last week and is a different strain of the disease than that which is currently effecting the nations of Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia in West Africa.

The first reports of the outbreak in the Congo came on August 25, 2014, however the virus is supposed to have started in the area a couple of weeks previous to this. The first reported deaths were from the small town of Boende, an isolated town in the Equateur province, heavily surrounded by tropical forest.

Ebola “Out of Control”

The director for the Centres of Disease Control and Prevention says that the Ebola outbreak is going to get worse.

Speaking to “CBS This Morning” following his trip to the West African countries dealing with the outbreak, Dr. Tom Frieden explained that they have to act now to try to get Ebola under control.

“It is the world’s first Ebola epidemic and it is spiraling out of control. It’s bad now and it’s going to get worse in the very near future,”.