KINSHASA, Sept 15 (Bernama-Xinhua) -- More than 7,200 confirmed Ebola cases have been recorded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), as sustained transmission continues in several provinces despite an overall downward trend of the epidemic, according to governmental data released on Tuesday, reported Xinhua.
A government report covering the epidemiological situation as of Sunday said 7,258 confirmed cases had been recorded in seven provinces, including 3,510 deaths and 1,726 recoveries. A total of 905 patients were in isolation or hospitalised, while the overall fatality rate stood at 48.4 per cent.
The outbreak has affected 62 health zones across seven provinces -- Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut-Uele, Bas-Uele, Tshopo and Sud-Ubangi. Sustained transmission continued in Ituri, North Kivu and Haut-Uele, while sporadic cases were reported in Tshopo and Bas-Uele.
The overall epidemic curve was trending downward as the peak appeared to have been reached around mid-August, said Dieudonne Mwamba Kazadi, head of the National Institute of Public Health, after a strategic coordination meeting in Kinshasa on Monday.
However, he cautioned that the decline was uneven across the country, with some provinces, particularly North Kivu, still reporting increases in cases.
Declared in May, the current outbreak has become the largest and deadliest Ebola epidemic in the DRC's history and the second-largest globally, behind the 2014-2016 epidemic in West Africa.
-- BERNAMA-XINHUA