21 January 2019•Update: 21 January 2019
DAKAR, Senegal
The death toll in the Democratic Republic of Congo from Ebola has risen to 370 since the start of an outbreak in late July last year, the country’s Health Ministry said on Monday.
Among 685 cases of reported hemorrhagic fever, 636 were confirmed to be Ebola cases, according to the ministry.
It has also been reported that 245 people have recovered from the virus in the Central African country.
Some 49 people died following hemorrhagic fever, but it could not be verified whether they died of Ebola because they were buried without an autopsy.
A total of 63,061 people were administered anti-Ebola vaccines in the country as part of a campaign that began on Aug. 8.
Ebola -- a tropical fever which first appeared in 1976 in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo -- can be transmitted to humans from wild animals.
It can also reportedly spread through contact with the body fluids of infected persons or of those who have succumbed to the virus.
Ebola caused global alarm in 2014 when the world's worst outbreak began in West Africa, killing more than 11,300 people and infecting an estimated 28,600 as it swept through Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.
Reporting by Alaattin Dogru:Writing by Busra Nur Bilgic
