A third case of Ebola has been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the major border city of Goma.
Authorities in that country on Thursday said the one-year-old daughter of an Ebola patient who died on Wednesday had also contracted the virus.
“There’s a third confirmed case. It’s the daughter of the patient who died yesterday,” Aruna Abedi, Ebola response coordinator in North Kivu province said.
“The little girl is in hospital, but the virus could be fatal as mortality rates are high in children,” he added.
On Wednesday, a man died of the highly contagious virus in the city of about two million people.
He had reportedly spent several days with his family while exhibiting symptoms according to Abedi.
This third confirmed case is the first transmission of Ebola inside Goma during this outbreak, as the previous two patients are thought to have contracted the disease elsewhere.
Thursday marks one year since the start of the epidemic – the second-worst on record – which has led to more than 1,800 deaths in the DRC.
After the first person to contract the disease in Goma died last month, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak an international health emergency – the fifth in history.
Before Goma, the epidemic had been largely limited to rural areas in the eastern provinces of North Kivu and Ituri. But now as a result of the new cases in one of DR Congo’s larger urban areas, Rwanda and other neighboring countries – South Sudan, Uganda and Burundi – are now on high alert.
