Doctors have sounded the alarm after 15 people died from one of the deadliest diseases on the planet in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
An outbreak of Ebola started in the southern part of the country last month, leaving officials racing to contain the spread of the deadly virus.
28 cases have so far been detected, and four health workers are among those to have died already.
This is the 16th outbreak of the virus in the DRC.
Ebola is one of the deadliest viruses in the world
The African nation’s health ministry said that officials were alerted to the latest outbreak after a 34-year-old woman who was pregnant was brought to the hospital in Kasai province with high temperature and vomiting.
It is not clear whether this woman has since died.
Mohamed Janabi, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) regional director for Africa, said that the United Nations agency was ‘acting with determination to rapidly halt the spread of the virus and protect communities’.
Experts from the WHO have been sent to the region to work alongside a rapid response team from DRC to help bolster services from disease prevention and detection, treatment, and control within health facilities.
However, Janabi warned that ‘case numbers are likely to increase as the transmission is ongoing’.
The official said: “Response teams and local teams will work to find the people who may be infected and need to receive care, to ensure everyone is protected as quickly as possible.”
The WHO said that the DRC has a stockpile of treatments and 2,000 doses of the Ervebo vaccine.
Those are to be brought to Kasai and given to contacts of those who have contracted the virus and healthcare workers on the frontlines.
A shipment including mobile lab equipment and medical supplies will also be sent.
Three years ago, six people died during the last outbreak in DRC.
However, between 2018 and 2020 around 2,300 people died during another outbreak.
How deadly is Ebola?
Ebola is a viral haemorrhagic fever that is named after a river in DRC.
Discovered in 1976, the disease is among the most deadly on earth, with a fatality rate of over 50 percent - 53.6 percent, to be more accurate.
It is transmitted through bodily fluid exposure, and the key symptoms include diarrhoea, fever, vomiting, and bleeding.
Outbreaks can be particularly difficult to contain in areas with many people and particularly in built-up areas like cities.
The illness occurs naturally in some animals such as bats, monkeys and porcupines, but can be transmitted to people through eating uncooked so-called ‘bushmeat’.
Those who are infected do not become contagious until after an incubation period of between two days and three weeks, and until symptoms appear.
In 2014, 11 cases were found in the USA, of which four were laboratory confirmed.
In total, two of those people died.
None of those who died contracted the disease in the United States, with most of the cases made up of those medically evacuated from other countries.