DRC Ebola outbreak ‘distinct and independent event,’ say WHO

“Results from virus characterization, together with findings from the epidemiological investigation, are definitive: the outbreak in DRC is a distinct and independent event, with no relationship to the outbreak in West Africa,” says a situation statement the World Health Organization (WHO) has released. Virus sequencing of samples shows the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) strain […]

“Results from virus characterization, together with findings from the epidemiological investigation, are definitive: the outbreak in DRC is a distinct and independent event, with no relationship to the outbreak in West Africa,” says a situation statement the World Health Organization (WHO) has released. Virus sequencing of samples shows the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) strain is the Zaire strain, which is indigenous to the DRC and closely related to the strain that caused DRC’s 1995 Ebola outbreak. Ebola first emerged in humans in 1976 in simultaneous outbreaks in Nzara in Sudan (now South Sudan) and Yambuku in Zaire (now DRC). The DRC outbreak occurred near the Ebola river, from which the virus takes its name.