Deadly disease outbreaks often feel distant until health officials begin issuing urgent warnings.
What starts in isolated areas can quickly become an international concern when cases begin spreading across borders, reports LADbible.
That is now the situation in Central Africa, where the World Health Organization and Africa CDC are warning that a growing Ebola outbreak may be far larger than first believed.
More than 300 suspected infections and at least 88 deaths have been reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, according to health authorities monitoring the crisis.
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Hard to contain
The World Health Organization has officially classified the outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern, one of the agency’s highest warning levels.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressed that the outbreak is not currently considered a global pandemic like Covid-19.
Still, officials say the situation remains highly concerning because the virus has already spread outside the original outbreak zone in eastern Congo.
One confirmed case has now been identified in Kinshasa, the Congolese capital, after the infected person reportedly travelled from the Ituri region.
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Experts also fear the true number of infections could be much higher than current figures suggest.
Rising fears
Health teams are struggling to track the spread because many people travel frequently between mining regions for work.
Ongoing violence from militant groups in the area is also making containment efforts far more difficult.
Africa CDC has warned that authorities still do not know who the first infected person was, making it harder to understand how widely the virus may already have spread.
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The WHO also says clusters of deaths and high numbers of positive test samples indicate the outbreak could escalate rapidly in the coming weeks.
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