The World Health Organisation (WHO) has undertaken a significant revision of the number of Ebola cases in Central Africa, seeing 116 reported cases as of May 31, in comparison to over 900 cases noted in the week prior, according to reports on Tuesday.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has reduced its Ebola cases, having recorded 906 cases in the previous week. As per the revised figures the number of Ebola cases stands at 330, which includes 321 cases in Congo and nine in Uganda.
The reason for this notable drop is due to reclassification and testing as those exhibiting symptoms akin to Ebola, actually had other conditions such as meningitis, malaria and fever, according to WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier.
According to Lindmeier, Ebola monitoring systems would classify anyone with symptoms similar to Ebola or identified as a suspected case by health authorities pending laboratory confirmation as having Ebola.
The Ebola outbreak claimed 48 confirmed fatalities in the DRC and one in Uganda. The epidemic was officially declared on May 15, in Ituri province in the northeast section of the DRC and was weathering heavy conflict. According to public health professionals, the virus had been spreading for weeks while undetected before the official declaration.
The strain was identified as the Bundibugyo Ebola virus, which when infecting people has them exhibit the early symptoms of diseases such as malaria and typhoid fever.
Previous data gathered by WHO also included 223 suspected deaths in connection to Ebola, which have subsequently been excised, due to uncertainty over verification and testing.
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