July 24 (Reuters) – The number of people confirmed infected with Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo was heading towards 3,000 on Friday after officials reviewed data in two of the worst-hit provinces and reported more than 300 new cases.
• The number of confirmed Ebola cases was 2,905, including 1,269 deaths, according to the daily report from the central African country’s public health institute.
• The number of confirmed deaths passed the 1,000 mark in figures announced late on Wednesday.
• The World Health Organization has said the true scale of the outbreak could be two to four times larger than official data suggest.
• The Ebola outbreak, Congo’s 17th, was declared in mid-May but experts believe infections started circulating weeks earlier.
• It is caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus, which has a fatality rate of about 40%. There is no approved vaccine.
• Congo’s public health institute said the increase reported on Friday was largely driven by the reconciliation of data from Ituri and North Kivu provinces with national figures.
(Reporting by Fiston Mahamba in Goma; Writing by Anait Miridzhanian in Dakar; Editing by Alexander Winning and Andrew Heavens)
