The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has spread to two additional northeastern provinces, Haut-Uele and Tshopo, the country’s public health institute said in its latest report.
Confirmed cases nationwide have risen to 1,926, including 702 deaths, according to official figures released late Sunday.
Four cases, including two deaths, had been recorded in Tshopo province as of Saturday, while Haut-Uele reported one confirmed death.
The outbreak, Congo’s 17th, was declared on May 15 and has remained largely concentrated in Ituri province. Cases have also been reported in North Kivu and South Kivu.
Ebola is an often-fatal viral disease transmitted through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people or animals. Symptoms can include high fever, vomiting and internal and external bleeding.
Congolese health authorities began tracing people potentially exposed to the virus in Tshopo and Haut-Uele in late June, although the provinces had not previously been included in the government’s daily outbreak reports.
The National Institute of Public Health said investigations suggested that the cases detected in the two provinces were primarily imported from Niania in Ituri.
“Although current investigations suggest that all cases detected in these two provinces are primarily imported from Niania in Ituri, it is necessary and appropriate to consider these two provinces as an epidemic zone,” the institute said in a report dated July 11.
Tshopo is home to Kisangani, one of Congo’s largest cities, while Haut-Uele borders South Sudan and the Central African Republic, raising concerns about the risk of further regional spread.
A senior World Health Organization official told Reuters last week that the true scale of the outbreak could be between two and four times larger than official figures suggest.
The official said four out of every five newly detected Ebola cases had no known epidemiological link to previously identified patients, complicating efforts to trace transmission chains and contain the outbreak.