As many as 12 suspected Ebola virus cases have been reported in Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC’s) Equateur province, according to a DRC media report in French that was translated and posted yesterday by FluTrackers, an infectious disease news message board.

Also, officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed to Stat that 12 suspected cases, 8 of them fatal, were recorded in the Boyenge health area. Deaths occurred between January 10 and January 22. The official said samples have been sent to the National Institute of Biomedical Research in Kinshasa.
Equateur’s last outbreak occurred in 2022
If confirmed, the outbreak would mark Equateur’s province’s fourth Ebola outbreak since 2018.
Equateur province is the western part of the DRC, far from where fighting is underway in Goma, the capital of North Kivu province in the east. The province’s last outbreak occurred between April and July of 2022 in Mbandaka, the provincial capital. There were five cases, all fatal. Sequencing suggested the outbreak was triggered by a new spillover event from an animal rather than linked to a previous outbreak.