In just over three weeks the deadly haemorrhagic disease has killed 25 people and sickened 51 in the Central African Giant where it was first identified 42 years ago.

WHO crisis head Peter Salama says they’re starting to see good results from fighting the current Ebola outbreak.

Most of the cases remain in remote rural areas and the spread to the city of Mbandaka has not increased.

The use of what he calls innovative therapeutic regimens is what’s making the difference this time.

He says they plan to introduce five unlicenced  vaccines.

Two of them have been tested on humans and three on animals. There is data on their safety.

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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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Health Minister OLY KALENGA confirms a case of the deadly hemorrhagic disease in MBANDAKA, which a million inhabitants.

23 have already died in this outbreak.

4 000 doses of an experimental vaccine against Ebola have arrived in Kinshasa.

But it’s not easy as that.

When it is moved to the infected area, the drug has to be kept at below -30 degrees centigrade which is difficult in a country with poor infrastructure.

The infection in Mbandaka is the first urban case of Ebola thus far restricted to remote rural areas.

Air, road and river routes into and out of the city are being scoured to trace any source of the disease that killed more than 11 000 when it spread through three West African countries in 2014.

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