Daijiworld Media Network - Kinshasa

Kinshasa, Oct 3: Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) said the Ebola outbreak has eased in some areas, with no new cases reported in several health zones for weeks, even as the overall death toll crossed 4,000.

“We are no longer talking about outbreaks at the provincial level, but outbreaks concentrated in individual health zones,” Health Minister Roger Kamba said at a press briefing in Kinshasa on Friday.

Data released on Friday showed that the outbreak has claimed 4,018 lives among 8,300 confirmed cases across seven provinces, with an overall case fatality rate of 48.4 per cent. A total of 2,162 patients have recovered.

Of the 63 health zones affected across the seven provinces since the outbreak began, 12 have reported no new cases for 42 days, Kamba said.

“The situation remains highly variable, but we can see that the number of health zones reporting cases has decreased,” he said.

Despite signs of localised improvement, international medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) warned on Thursday that the actual toll was likely higher than officially reported due to gaps in disease surveillance and case detection.

The Ebola outbreak, declared in May, has become the largest and deadliest ever recorded in the DRC and the second-largest Ebola outbreak globally, after the 2014-2016 epidemic in West Africa.

Meanwhile, the United Nations warned that escalating violence in eastern DRC was further hampering efforts to contain the outbreak. A key transit centre for suspected Ebola patients was destroyed by fire at the Kigonze displacement camp in Ituri province.

The UN said the incident had added to the challenges facing the Ebola response amid continuing insecurity in the region.