Ebola Reaches 7th Congo Province After Cross-Border Travel

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has reached a seventh province after a patient traveled through Rwanda and Uganda, raising concerns about cross-border transmission. Provincial authorities in Sud-Ubangi declared an outbreak on Thursday after a 23-year-old man tested positive for the Bundibugyo strain of the virus and died. The man had left South Kivu and traveled over about three weeks through Rwanda and Uganda before returning to Congo and passing through several cities on his way to Gwaka in Sud-Ubangi, according to Jean-Jacques Mbungani, a former Congolese health minister. The journey included river travel and potentially exposed numerous people along the route. The outbreak is spreading beyond its original epicenter in Ituri province. While new cases and deaths have declined in Ituri, they have risen sharply in North Kivu and Haut-Uele, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. North Kivu accounted for 46 of 99 new infections reported Wednesday, nearly matching Ituri's 47. The World Health Organization describes the epidemic as increasingly heterogeneous, with divergent transmission trends across affected provinces.