Skip to main content

DR Congo rolls out prototype Ebola drugs as death toll rises to 67

An outbreak of Ebola in eastern DR Congo has killed 67 people this month, authorities said Saturday, as they roll out a battery of new drugs to tackle the virus amid concerns it has spread to a rebel-encircled area.
A total of 105 cases have been reported since the flare-up of Ebola began on August 1 in Mangina in North Kivu province, according to the health ministry, out of which 77 have been confirmed by laboratory tests.
It said 11 people have recovered from the virus and 67 had died.
Health minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga travelled to Mangina on Thursday and saw two patients being discharged after they were treated with a new prototype treatment called mAb114.
“These two people are among the first 10 patients to have received the therapeutic molecule mAb114,” the ministry said in a statement.
Developed in the United States, it is the first therapeutic drug to be used in an active Ebola epidemic in the DRC.
Earlier this week, the health ministry said four other experimental drugs had been approved for treating infected patients.
On Friday, the World Health Organization warned that signs the virus had spread to the city of Oicha in North Kivu could frustrate efforts to contain the virus.
While Oicha itself is not under rebel control, WHO emergency response chief Peter Salama said the city was entirely surrounded by territory held by a feared Ugandan insurgent group known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
Large numbers of civilians have been killed in unrest around Oicha, while aid workers, priests and government employers are currently being held hostage there by insurgents.
On Friday, army troops came under attack in Beni, at the heart of the Ebola-affected region, military and civil sources said. The assault was blamed on ADF rebels.
No official toll were provided but locals contacted by AFP on Saturday spoke of around 10 soldiers killed.
The current Ebola outbreak is the 10th to strike the DRC since 1976, when the disease was first identified and named after a river in the north of the country.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

EPL: Why Manchester United should not sack Mourinho – Gary Neville

Former Manchester United captain, Gary Neville, has insisted that the club will not fire manager Jose Mourinho during the season, despite the tension and bad results. Mourinho watched on as United suffered their second consecutive defeat in the Premier League against Tottenham Hotspur on Monday. Speaking on Monday Night Football, Neville said United should aim to let him see out the remaining two years on his deal. He saw the end of his contract at Inter Milan, he saw the end of his contract at Porto and he saw the end of his contract at Real Madrid. “It’s only at Chelsea, which is a club of madness, where this has happened. At Inter Milan, Porto and Real Madrid he saw it to the end so let’s not rewrite history. At Chelsea, everybody dies a little bit early. It’s that type of club, he’s not on his own there. “It was tough for him at Real Madrid and he got through to the end of the season. I don’t see it happening during the season. To suggest that Manchester United are li...
Post a Comment
Read more

New York University offers free tuition for all its medical students

NYU to cover fees of up to £43,000 in bid to tackle ‘overwhelming financial debt’ faced by graduates. All present and future medical students qualify for the scheme, regardless of need or merit  ( REUTERS/Brendan McDermid ) The New York University (NYU) School of Medicine will provide free tuition for all its students, regardless of merit or need, the university announced.  NYU  cited concerns about the "overwhelming financial debt" facing graduates and said these worries were driving  graduates  to more lucrative specialities, pushing  doctors  away from more general positions. To date, many of the efforts to assist students have centred on helping  undergraduates  cover the balance of their tuition bills, including at community colleges in Tennessee, and two- and four-year schools in  New York  under the new Excelsior Scholarship. READ MORE Jeremy Hunt announces five new medical sc...
Post a Comment
Read more

Trial of 24 in Congo over killings of UN experts resumes

The trial of 24 people, including a former intelligence agency informant, suspected in the killings of two UN sanctions monitors in 2017 in central Congo resumed on Monday after a 10-month suspension, defence lawyers said. Zaida Catalan, a Swede, and Michael Sharp, an American, were killed in March 2017 while investigating an armed conflict in Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kasai region between government forces and the local Kamuina Nsapu militia. Congo’s government has blamed their kidnappings and killings on the militia but some Western governments and rights groups suspect state officials may have been involved as Catalan and Sharp were conducting investigations in an area where the United Nations has accused Congo’s military of war crimes. Congolese government officials initially said no state agents were involved in the killings and that they did not know at the time that the two experts were in the region. But they later said they could not exclude the possibility state ...
Post a Comment
Read more