The Ebola outbreak in northwestern Congo is growing. UNICEF said on Sunday that five cases have been confirmed in Mbandaka, the capital of Equateur province, up from the first case confirmed on October 13 — a man who had travelled from Bikoro, about 130 kilometres away, the Associated Press reported.
The youngest confirmed patient is a 12-year-old girl, and UNICEF says she is in a stable condition. The cases involve the Zaire strain of Ebola, for which licensed vaccines and treatments exist — unlike the harder-to-control outbreaks responders have faced elsewhere.
More than 1,100 contacts of the confirmed patients are being traced, and at least one additional death is recorded in the outbreak figures. One confirmed case had contact with an international traveller, a detail that heightens the stakes for surveillance at a hub city on the Congo River.
Mbandaka is no stranger to Ebola: Equateur province contained an outbreak in 2022 in about a month. Health officials say the speed of contact tracing and vaccination in the coming days will decide whether this one stays a city-level emergency.
