The Democratic Republic of Congo and United Nations agencies have begun deploying emergency teams of specialists to try to prevent the spread of an Ebola epidemic suspected to have infected more than 30 people,.
The World Health Organisation obtained 4000 doses of an experimental Ebola vaccine and was preparing for deployment in Congo, its Africa director, Matshidiso Moeti, told Reuters on Sunday.
Only two cases have so far been confirmed in a laboratory.
The latest suspected case was reported on Friday in the northwestern province of Equateur, which Health Minister Oly Ilunga Kalenga visited on Saturday with officials from the WHO and UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
Congo first reported the outbreak, centred on the village of Ikoko Impenge, near the town of Bikoro, on Tuesday, with 32 suspected, probable or confirmed cases of the disease, including 18 deaths since April 4. Some deaths occurring as early as January have not yet been linked to the epidemic.
Officials are racing to prevent the virus from spreading out of control, as happened in West Africa from 2014 to 2016, when Ebola killed more than 11,300 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.
The WHO was criticised for bungling its response to that epidemic, and so has moved quickly.
Congo suffered eight previous Ebola epidemics. But owing to remote geography and poor transport links, they tended to fizzle out rather than spread to become a national crisis.
But this epidemic's proximity to the Congo River, a major transport route and lifeline both to Congo's capital, Kinshasa, and to neighbouring Congo Republic's capital, Brazzaville, makes it more likely the virus could break out into a wider area.
The disease - most feared for the internal and external bleeding it can cause in its victims owing to damage done to blood vessels - has already spread to three locations covering 60km or more in Equateur province.
Congo's nine neighbours have been put on high alert in case Ebola crosses a border, especially to Republic of Congo or Central African Republic.
