Africa's health body warns that at least 10 countries are at risk of Ebola outbreak as efforts intensify to contain it in DRC.
Officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo updated the death toll from the Ebola outbreak to 204 late on Saturday, hours after the Red Cross said three volunteers had died there and Uganda confirmed three new Ebola cases.
A health ministry statement said 204 deaths had been recorded in three provinces of the vast central African country, from 867 suspected cases. The last World Health Organization toll on Friday put the number of deaths at 177 from 750 suspected cases.
The World Health Organization has declared the outbreak of the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever an international emergency.
Cases in Uganda
On Saturday, the African Union's health agency warned that more countries on the continent were at risk of being affected by the Ebola virus, in addition to the DRC and Uganda.
"We have 10 countries at risk," said Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), listing Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia.
Kaseya said "high mobility and insecurity" in the region were helping spread the disease.
The new cases confirmed in Uganda on Saturday bring to five the total confirmed in the east African country since it was detected there and in the DRC on May 15. One person in Uganda has died.
WHO raises risk level to ‘very high’
The health ministry identified the new patients as a Ugandan driver, a Ugandan health worker and a woman from the DRC. All are alive.
Ebola is a deadly viral disease that spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids. It can cause severe bleeding and organ failure.
The current epidemic centres on the conflict-wracked eastern DRC, where it was detected in Ituri province, which borders Uganda, before spreading to South Kivu.
On Friday, the WHO raised the risk from Ebola in the DRC to its highest level - "very high". It said the risk in central Africa was "high" but the global risk remained "low".
The outbreak, which experts suspect was circulating under the radar for some time, is caused by the less common Bundibugyo strain, for which there are no approved vaccines or treatments. Ebola has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa in the past half-century.
