Context: Recently, Democratic Republic of Congo declared a new Ebola epidemic in the western city of Mbandaka, more than 1,000 km (620 miles) away from an ongoing outbreak of the same deadly virus in the east.
Concerns

• The announcement comes as a long, difficult and complex Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo is in its final phase, while the country also battles COVID-19 and the world’s largest measles outbreak.
• This is the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s 11th outbreak of Ebola since the virus was first discovered in the country in 1976. 
• The city of Mbandaka and its surrounding area were the site of Democratic Republic of the Congo’s 9th Ebola outbreak, which took place from May to July 2018.

Earlier Ebola Outbreak in Africa

• The 2014–2016 outbreak in West Africa was the largest Ebola outbreak since the virus was first discovered in 1976.
• The outbreak started in Guinea and then moved across land borders to Sierra Leone and Liberia.
• The current 2018-2019 outbreak in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is highly complex.

About Ebola Virus Disease

• Ebola virus disease, formerly known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human to human transmission.
• Transmission: Fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family are natural Ebola virus hosts.
• Animal to human transmission: Ebola is introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals such as fruit bats, chimpanzees, gorillas, monkeys, forest antelope or porcupines found ill or dead or in the rainforest.

Human-to-human transmission: Ebola spreads via direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with:

• Blood or body fluids of a person who is sick with or has died from Ebola.
• Objects that have been contaminated with body fluids (like blood, feces, vomit) from a person sick with Ebola or the body of a person who died from Ebola

Symptoms: symptoms of Ebola can be sudden and include: Fever, Fatigue, Muscle pain, Headache, Sore throat, Vomiting, Diarrhoea, Symptoms of impaired kidney and liver function and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding.
Diagnosis: It can be difficult to clinically distinguish Ebola from other infectious diseases such as malaria, typhoid fever, and meningitis but confirmation that symptoms are caused by Ebola virus infection are made using the following diagnostic methods:

• ELISA (antibody-capture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay)
• Antigen-capture detection tests
• Serum neutralization test
• Reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay
• Electron microscopy
• Virus isolation by cell culture.

Vaccines:

• An experimental Ebola vaccine, called rVSV-ZEBOV proved highly protective against EVD in a major trial in Guinea in 2015.
• The rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine is being used in the ongoing 2018-2019 Ebola outbreak in DRC. Pregnant and breastfeeding women should have access to the vaccine under the same conditions as for the general population.
• The public mistrust and militia attacks have prevented health workers from reaching some hard-hit areas for administering the vaccines.