Ebola case confirmed in Congolese city of Goma

DR Congo health ministry confirmed in a series of tweets that a sick pastor tested positive for the ebola virus in a centre in Goma.

Kinshasa (DR Congo):Panic gripped after a case of Ebola was confirmed in the eastern Congolese city of Goma, home to more than a million people.

The health ministry confirmed in a series of tweets that a sick pastor tested positive for the virus in a centre in Goma arriving there by a bus from Butembo on Sunday, media reported.

The man was tested "and the results of the laboratory test confirmed that he was positive for Ebola," the ministry said in a statement.

It added that his trip began on Friday after "the first symptoms appeared on July 9 (Tuesday)".

"Given that the patient was quickly identified, as well as all the passengers on the bus from Butembo, the risk of the disease spreading in the city of Goma is low," the ministry said.

The passengers and the bus driver will begin getting vaccinations on Monday, it added.

Goma is located south of North Kivu and Ituri Provinces, where the second-largest Ebola outbreak on record was first detected a year ago.

The disease outbreak in eastern DR Congo has so far killed 1,655 people and 694 have been cured, according to a health ministry bulletin issued last Saturday.

Around 160,239 people have been vaccinated, it added.

But efforts to tackle the crisis have been hampered both by local terror attacks on treatment centres, in which some staff have been killed and by the hostility of some local people towards the medical teams.