Ebola case detected in northwestern province far from epicentre, official says

(Corrects attribution in first bullet point)

By Fiston Mahamba

GOMA, Sept 11 (Reuters) – An Ebola case has been detected in a province in the northwestern corner of Democratic Republic of Congo, far from the epicentre of the country’s most lethal outbreak on record, an official said on Friday.

• The case involves a man who died on Tuesday in the town of Gwaka, in South Ubangi province, according to Jean-Jacques Mbungani, a former health minister and a lawmaker from the area. He travelled from South Kivu province in eastern Congo through Rwanda and Uganda before re-entering Congo and arriving in South Ubangi, which borders Republic of Congo and Central African Republic, Mbungani told Reuters.

• Jean-Jacques Muyembe, head of Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research in Kinshasa, confirmed on Friday that the man had tested positive for Ebola.

• Authorities fear a large number of contacts due to the patient’s use of road and river transport, with neighbouring provinces and countries potentially at risk, Mbungani said.

• The ongoing Ebola outbreak, Congo’s 17th, has so far infected 6,942 people, including 3,349 deaths, according to the latest government data. It is the second-largest outbreak on record, behind the outbreak in West Africa that lasted from 2014 to 2016.

(Reporting by Fiston Mahamba; Writing by Ayen Deng Bior; Editing by Robbie Corey-Boulet and Toby Chopra)