This warning from the World Health Organization as three patients escape quarantine in the first city the deadly haemorrhagic disease has reached.

Head of the WHO emergency response Peter Salama says the Ebola outbreak in the DRC is on a epidimiological knife edge.

Seven more cases have been reported and the death toll is 27.

At least 150 people have come into contact with each case and all of these have be be vaccinated.

Salama explains: “There are three separate chains of transmission we’re following. Each one has the potential to expand if not controlled.” 

Three patients escaped from quarantine in Mbandaka the Congo River port upstream from Kinshasa and Brazzaville and downstream from Bangui.

Medicines Sans Frontiers says two of them have been found dead. 

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It could declare a public health emergency which would trigger a larger international response.

The Ebola outbreak in the DRC has infected at least 44 people – killing 23 of them.

It has broken out of the rural area where it was first detected and moved to Mbandaka, a major transport hub on the Congo River.

If health experts in Geneva find it will spread from there into other parts of the DRC and neighboring countries they will declare a public health emergency that will mobilize  more international research and resources.

The WHO stands accused of responding too slowly to the 2014 Ebola outbreak that killed more than 11 000 people in three West African countries.

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