Health officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Apr 23 declared an Ebola outbreak after the virus was confirmed in a man who died from his infection at an Ebola treatment center in Equateur province, marking the region's third outbreak since 2018.

Yesterday, scientists who examined the genetic sequence of the sample said evidence suggests a new spillover from the host reservoir and doesn't show a direct link to Equateur province's earlier outbreaks in 2018 and 2020.

Speedy genetic analysis narrows source

The World Health Organization (WHO) African regional office said in an Apr 23 statement that the 31-year-old man's symptoms began on Apr 5, and he received care at home for a week before seeking treatment at a local health facility.

On Apr 21, he was admitted to an Ebola treatment center in Mbandaka, but died the same day. Mbdanaka is on the Congo River's east bank and has frequent travel connections to Kinshasa and Boende, the capital of Tshuapa Province.

Given his symptoms, health workers submitted samples for testing.

Virus sequencing results posted by scientists on Virological.org, an online discussion forum for analyzing virus genomes, added more details, including that the man is a student in Tshuapa Province who returned to Mbandaka on Feb 25. He was vaccinated against Ebola in 2020 and isn't known to be an Ebola survivor.

Scientists also said he was hospitalized Mbandaka for 3 days before he was transferred to the Ebola treatment center at the city's Wangata General Reference Hospital.

The virus was sequenced at the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB) in Kinshasa. Scientists from the lab and their international collaborators compared the virus with those sequenced in the region's earlier outbreak, finding that the new genome is closely related to the virus in Equateur Province's 2020 outbreak, but is outside the clade, representing a new spillover event.

Meanwhile, the WHO said the man received a safe and dignified burial, and efforts to identify and monitor contacts are under way.

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