Ebola outbreak: why the WHO is so worried this time

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By Emma Wilkinson

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda is a “public health emergency of international concern”.

Doctors.net.uk looks at why the organisation is so worried about the virus:

How big is the outbreak?

It appears that a rare strain of Ebola has been spreading for weeks in an area of Africa where civil war, a highly mobile population and healthcare provided through a network of informal facilities makes it difficult to understand the true extent of the outbreak and keep it under control.

WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned there are currently "significant uncertainties to the true number of infected persons and geographic spread" of the outbreak.

The latest estimate is there have been 390 suspected cases and at least 100 reported deaths in Ituri Province in the DRC but only eight have been laboratory confirmed, the WHO said in an update on Monday.