Free Republic

Twenty-six people died of Ebola in a single day in the North Kivu province, the highest daily toll since its outbreak nearly nine months ago,... the health ministry said Tuesday...The current outbreak is the second deadliest on record, after the epidemic that struck West Africa in 2014-2016 and killed more than 11,300 people. It said of the total deaths of 957, 33 were health workers who had succumbed to the disease. Local organisations say the number of Ebola deaths is rising...Adding to the logistical hitches are a string of assaults on teams fighting the disease.

Seventeen people in northwest Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have died from Ebola, the health ministry said on Tuesday, describing the fresh outbreak as a "public health emergency with international impact." "Twenty-one cases of fever with haemorrhagic indications and 17 deaths" have been recorded in Equateur province, it said, citing a notification to the ministry as of May 3. It is the DRC's ninth known outbreak of Ebola since 1976, when the deady viral disease was first identified in then-Zaire by a Belgian-led team.

At least 17 people have died in an area of northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo where health officials have now confirmed an outbreak of Ebola, the health ministry said on Tuesday. It is the ninth time Ebola has been recorded in the central African nation, whose eastern Ebola river gave the deadly virus its name when it was discovered there in the 1970s, and comes less than a year after its last outbreak which killed eight people.

Scientists battling the deadly Ebola virus are poised for a breakthrough in the new year after an experimental vaccine shot proved to be 100-percent effective during a trial in West Africa and received fast-track status from the Food and Drug Administration.