MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th February, 2019) The number of Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has increased to 806, with 505 people having died of the disease, the country's Ministry of Public Health said on Saturday.
In late January, the death toll from the virus in the DRC stood at 439, while the whole number of Ebola cases amounted to 713, according to the ministry.
"Ebola - the situation on Saturday, February 9, 2019: a total of 806 cases (745 confirmed and 61 possible), 505 [people] died and 273 have recovered," the ministry wrote on its Twitter page.
The Ebola virus is transmitted to humans from wild animals and is estimated by the World Health Organization to have a 50-percent fatality rate. Ebola is named after the DRC's Ebola River, near which the virus was discovered by Belgian microbiologist Peter Piot and his team in 1976.
