October 11, 2024
Ebola outbreak in the Congo spreads to a new city where one million people live in the epidemic that has killed 1,600
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The Congolese city Goma is around 180 miles (300km) south of Butembo, with a population of more than one million people. Cases continue to soar in Beni, Butembo, Katwa, Mabalako and Mandima, where the outbreak is centered.
The Congolese city Goma is around 180 miles (300km) south of Butembo, with a population of more than one million people. Cases continue to soar in Beni, Butembo, Katwa, Mabalako and Mandima, where the outbreak is centered.

Ebola has spread to the Congolese city of Goma, which has a population of more than a million people, as the virus continues to devastate the region.  

The victim is a pastor who had arrived in the city by bus after visiting Butembo, a town around 200miles (320km) north in the centre of the outbreak.

He had been preaching at a church where he would have touched worshippers ‘including the sick’, the country’s health ministry said on Sunday. 

Authorities have urged people to remain calm after the government said the chances of the virus spreading were ‘low’.

But tensions are high and two health workers were murdered in their homes over the weekend.

Experts have said the escalation was ‘unexpected’ and should serve as a reminder to the World Health Organization to declare a global emergency. 

In this, the second worst outbreak in history, 1,665 people have died from Ebola since August last year.

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