Ebola spreads to high-risk area of Congo

GENEVA: Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola outbreak has spread southwards into an area with high security risks, the World Health Organization said. The outbreak has killed 439 of the 713 people have caught the disease. The fight against Ebola depends on tracing people who may have had contact with the disease. But the outbreak in a region of Congo with frequent fighting makes it hard for health workers to move around and monitor potential sufferers and to spread messages about how to avoid becoming sick. Most of the cases since the start of the year have been in Katwa health zone, where the WHO said Ebola workers had faced “pockets of community mistrust” and people falling ill were not on lists of people suspected of coming into contact with Ebola.