Africa Ebola outbreak passes 10,000 cases, mostly in DR Congo

Africa's latest outbreak of Ebola has passed 10,000 confirmed cases, the vast majority of them in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Congolese health authorities said on Tuesday, with almost 5,000 fatalities.

According to the DRC's figures, 10,060 people have been infected and 4,887 have died since the virus was first detected in May in the vast central African country's deadliest outbreak in its history.

Cases have likewise been detected in Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda, with the World Health Organization warning that Africa faces a "complex" task to contain an outbreak spanning the east, west and centre of the continent.

While some 2,684 have recovered from the virus in the DRC, the epidemic's fatality rate appears to be close to 50 percent, according to the Congolese National Institute of Public Health.

Among the many challenges facing the response is the lack of any approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo species of Ebola behind the epidemic.

After spreading under the radar for weeks, the virus was first detected in the northeastern Congolese province of Ituri, kicking off the DRC's 17th outbreak of the disease.

It has since spread across swathes of the country's north and east, which is plagued by a litany of violence by various armed groups and where trust in a faraway and long-absent state is low.

Ituri and the eastern North Kivu province, the latter of which is partially controlled by the Rwanda-backed M23 militia, account for the majority of reported cases.

After registering a total of 20 cases and two deaths, neighbouring Uganda was declared Ebola-free by the WHO in late August.

Kenya, which had not reported a single case of the contagious virus until October 6, has likewise suffered two deaths from the virus out of nine cases. Most of those infected had recently travelled to the DRC.

The only case so far confirmed in Nigeria, a 42-year-old Swiss woman who contracted the virus following a trip to Uganda with her husband, was evacuated back to a hospital in Geneva on Monday.

Fifty-three of the patient's contacts have been identified by the Nigerian health authorities, in a bid to stop the virus spreading across Africa's most populous nation.

Some experts are worried that the virus -- caught through contact with bodily fluids -- could have spread after the Swiss couple landed back in Nigeria on October 3.

The WHO said the patient, the wife of an employee of the Swiss embassy in the capital Abuja, developed symptoms on October 7.

She then sought care in Abuja on October 11, before testing positive for Bundibugyo on October 20.

A Ugandan government spokesperson dismissed the idea that the Swiss woman could have contracted the disease while in the African Great Lakes nation.

The response to the DRC's outbreak has been hampered by the distrust of parts of the population.

A nurse was killed and a health worker seriously wounded in the northeastern Tshopo province on Saturday, according to the WHO.

Doctor Marcel Likolo, chief medical officer of the Bafwasende health district, told AFP that young people from the area had accused the victims of trying to infect locals with tablets before attacking them.

The Ebola treatment centre where the incident took place has since shut down, he said.

Since it first emerged half a century ago, Ebola has killed more than 15,000 people across Africa.

Testing of the Ervebo vaccine, which has already proven to be effective against the more common Zaire strain of the virus, has begun in recent weeks to determine whether it could also provide protection against the Bundibugyo variant.