The head of the World Health Organization said on Tuesday that he was “deeply concerned about the scale and speed” of the Ebola outbreak spreading in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, as the suspected death toll in Congo climbed to over 130 people.
Laboratory testing has now definitively linked 30 cases to the virus in Congo’s northeastern Ituri Province, where the outbreak was first identified, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the W.H.O., said in an address to the World Health Assembly.
Dr. Tedros said the deaths of health care workers, high population mobility in the area and the absence of vaccines or therapeutics for the Bundibugyo species of Ebola behind the outbreak raised fears of further spread and deaths.
His comments came shortly after the country’s health minister, Dr. Samuel-Roger Kamba, said in a livestreamed news conference that 131 suspected deaths and 513 suspected cases had been linked to the outbreak.
The figures marked a sharp increase from Monday, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there had been reports of 88 suspected deaths and 336 cases, and 11 confirmed cases in Congo. Two cases had also been confirmed in neighboring Uganda, the C.D.C. said.
Yan Zhuang is a Times reporter in Seoul who covers breaking news.
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