Ebola outbreak declared in Kasai province as towns are locked down after 58 suspected cases and 20 deaths

Health officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have declared an Ebola outbreak after recording 58 suspected cases and 20 deaths in the Kasai province, prompting local lockdowns and checkpoints intended to prevent further spread.

The outbreak centers on the towns of Bulape and Mweka. The World Health Organization said the first confirmed case was a pregnant woman who sought care at Bulape General Reference Hospital on Aug. 20 with high fever, bloody stool and other symptoms; she died five days later, and testing on Sept. 4 confirmed Ebola. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday posted a Level 1 travel alert advising Americans to take precautions when traveling to the DRC but said the risk of infection in the United States is low.

Provincial authorities have placed residents under confinement and erected multiple checkpoints along borders within Kasai to restrict movement, the province governor said in a statement. Francois Mingambengele, administrator of the Mweka territory, which includes Bulape, told Reuters that officials feared movement from Bulape could seed new infections in other communities. "The problem is that we're afraid that the movement of people from Bulape could lead to contamination in other communities," he said, adding that some people had gone into the bush to hide as cases multiplied.

The CDC reported that four health care workers were among the dead. Health authorities have not reported cases outside the DRC linked to this outbreak.

Ebola virus disease is spread by contact with the blood or body fluids of an infected person, contact with contaminated objects, or contact with infected animals such as bats or primates. Early symptoms can include fever, headache, muscle pain and weakness, followed by diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain and unexplained bleeding or bruising in severe cases. Without treatment, Ebola can cause severe illness and has had mortality rates as high as 90 percent in some outbreaks.

There are currently two U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved treatments for Ebola, Inmazeb and Ebanga, officials said. An FDA-approved vaccine is also used in outbreak responses but is not distributed to the general public and is typically given to those involved in outbreak containment and to contacts of confirmed cases.

This is the DRC’s first Ebola outbreak in three years and the first recorded in Kasai province since 2008. Earlier this year, Uganda declared and later ended an outbreak of the Sudan virus, a species of Ebola virus that can cause severe hemorrhagic fever; that event included 12 confirmed cases, two probable cases and four deaths, with the outbreak declared over in April.

The largest Ebola epidemic on record occurred in West Africa from 2014 to 2016, when more than 28,600 cases were reported across multiple countries. In the United States, suspected Ebola cases have occasionally prompted alerts; two patients in New York City earlier this year were initially suspected of having Ebola after travel from Uganda but later tested negative. The first confirmed U.S. Ebola patient was diagnosed in 2014 after travel from Liberia and later died.

Local and international health agencies said they are working to trace contacts, isolate suspected cases and provide care, while monitoring the situation for signs of wider spread. Authorities emphasized that rapid identification, infection control measures and vaccination of responders and contacts are central to limiting transmission during the outbreak.