A 24-year-old woman died and her 7-month-old baby is being treated in the Mwenga region of South Kivu province in the east of the country, Muyembe said in a statement.

He said investigations showed the mother and her children had travelled to Beni in North Kivu where they were exposed to the highly infectious virus.

The Ebola epidemic has raged for more than a year in the eastern provinces of North Kivu and Ituri and is difficult to control.

“On Thursday, we dispatched a team of experts to the area to try and stop the spread of the virus and halt the epidemic,” Muyembe said.

The new cases come just days after the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced a breakthrough in the fight against Ebola with two experimental drugs.

According to authorities, almost 2,900 people have contracted the virus so far and more than 1,900 people have died.

Vaccination campaigns have been run in Congo, as well as in the neighbouring countries of South Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

This is the second-worst outbreak of the disease on record and the WHO declared it a global emergency in July.

Efforts to curb Ebola have been hampered by fighting in the region, where various militia groups are operating and health workers and facilities have been targeted.

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Carly Kasivita, the governor of North Kivu, told dpa, “our response teams took care of the case immediately, but unfortunately, I can confirm the death of the patient.’’

Eastern Congo has been in the midst of the second worst Ebola outbreak in history since last year.

The major city of Goma, confirmed for the first time a case of the highly infectious disease that causes a fever and often leads to massive internal bleeding and fatalities.

A Christian pastor who had been in the Ebola-affected town of Butembo to preach, and had placed hands on congregants at several churches there, was confirmed to have the virus, according to the Health Ministry.

World Health Organisation (WHO) teams started vaccinations against Ebola in Goma on Monday, focusing particularly on people who were on a bus with the pastor from Butembo to Goma.

So far more than 1,600 people have died from the virus in Congo.

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The global health agency also said that total cases of 211 had been recorded, comprising 176 confirmed cases and 35 probable cases.

On Friday afternoon, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative in the DRC, Leila Zerrougui, had said a Beni-based UN colleague had tested positive for Ebola and was now receiving the necessary medical treatment.

Medical officials reported that the patient was feeling well and that his progress was satisfactory, while co-workers who had had contact with him would receive appropriate support and follow-up.

Following the rising incidences of infection, WHO has called an Emergency Committee meeting on the Ebola virus outbreak on Wednesday in Geneva.

WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus, said the agency had assessed the national and regional risk of the current Ebola outbreak in DRC as “very high”.

Ghebreyesus said while the global risk remained low, so far, the UN health watchdog has not called for any trade or travel restrictions to be imposed.

The crisis meeting would decide whether or not the outbreak constituted a public health emergency of international concern, and what recommendations should be made to manage the spread of the disease.

This outbreak, the 10th to hit the DRC over the last four decades, was declared in North Kivu Province on Aug. 1.

However, based on the worsening security situation in and around the city of Beni, WHO elevated the risk from “high” to “very high” on Sept. 28.

The UN agency identified 39 new confirmed cases were reported between Oct. 1 and Oct. 11, 32 of which were from Beni.

The DRC Ministry of Health, WHO and other partners have been responding to the outbreak with teams on the ground.

However, WHO has warned that continuing insecurity severely affects both civilians and frontline workers, forcing the suspension of the response for several days in late September.

It said this raised the risk that the virus would continue to spread.

No fewer than 20 civilians in Beni were killed in the incident that provoked the suspension, which came on the heels of multiple attacks in previous weeks.

It was estimated by the UN that more than a million civilians under threat from armed groups are internally-displaced in North Kivu, and around 500,000 in 2018 so far.

WHO continued to warn that the recent spike in violent incidents in the areas was making response more difficult.

It added that it was also increasing the risk of the outbreak spreading within DRC, and to neighbouring countries, especially Rwanda and Uganda.

The agency reported that it has continued to work with all nine neighbouring countries to increase their preparedness.

Meanwhile, the UN Children’s Fund reported that one month after the beginning of the school year, 80 per cent of school-aged children have returned to school.

This was in the Beni and Mabalako health zones, the two epicentres of the Ebola outbreak.

The UN children agency said it had identified more than 1,500 schools in the areas affected by the epidemic.

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Speaking from the country’s capital, Kinshasa, Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, hailed the “tireless efforts” of local teams in combating the deadly disease, which claimed 29 lives, and infected dozens more.

The WHO chief also commended the concerted national and international effort to contain the threat.

The countdown to the announcement began on June 12, when the last patient was released from care after testing negative a second time for the virus, whose symptoms include major bleeding and high fever.

Tedros, particularly congratulated health partners, donors and the DRC Ministry of Health for working together so effectively, to end the outbreak.

Unlike eight previous Ebola outbreaks in DRC in the past four decades, this latest episode was complicated by the fact that it involved a major urban centre of more than one million people.

This is made up of Mbandaka city, with a direct connection via the Congo River to the capital and to neighbouring countries, as well as extremely remote rainforest villages.

There were concerns that the disease could spread from Equateur province to other parts of DRC and neighbouring countries, Tedros said, adding, however, the threat was minimised due to the release of emergency WHO funding within hours of the outbreak being declared on May 8.

WHO and partners appealed for 57 million dollars to stop the spread of Ebola while the total funds received by all partners amounted to 63 million dollars.

Fighting the DRC outbreak was also made easier by the existence of a vaccine, following a major trial in Guinea in 2016, one of three countries in West Africa where Ebola claimed more than 11,300 lives between 2013 and 2016.

The absence of a cure for the disease was in part responsible for the continued reliance on traditional burial methods, WHO has said, which in some cases involved bathing in the water used to clean those who had died from the virus.

In an appeal to the authorities and health partners to transfer the momentum of fighting Ebola to other diseases in DRC, Tedros said that they could be “confident” about tackling cholera and polio, too.

“We must continue to work together, investing in strengthened preparedness and access to health care for the most vulnerable,” he said.

Looking ahead, WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, said that DRC was in a better position to address future public health emergencies, since “more than three quarters of the 360 people deployed to respond (to the Ebola outbreak) came from within the region”.

DRC’s health professionals had also gained valuable knowledge and insight from those involved in the West Africa Ebola vaccination campaign, involving nearly 12,000 people, Moeti added.

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