Ebola outbreak spreading as crowd sets fire to treatment centre in DRC

DR Congo Ebola outbreak spreads to rebel-held South Kivu

The World Health Organization (WHO) has sent 11 tonnes of critical medical supplies from its regional emergency hub in Nairobi to support the Ebola outbreak response in Ituri province, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

No vaccine or treatment exists for the new Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, a disease whose strains have killed more than 15,000 people in Africa in the past half-century.

People set fire to an Ebola treatment centre in a town at the heart of the outbreak in eastern DR Congo on Thursday after being stopped from retrieving the body of a local man, a witness and a senior police officer said, as fear and anger grow over a health crisis that doctors are struggling to contain.