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A new Ebola case confirmed in Congo.

The Health Minister of Democratic Republic of Congo announced on Friday that a new case of Ebola has been confirmed in eastern Congo, five months after the outbreak in the country ended.

It was unclear whether the case was related to the outbreak in 2018 that lasted till 2020, which killed over 2,200 people in eastern Congo, making it the second deadliest on record, or the flare-up that killed six people this year.

According to the reports of Health Minister Jean Jacques Mbungani, a 3-year-old boy tested positive and died from the disease on Wednesday, near the eastern city of Beni, one of the epicentres of the 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak.

He added that approximately 100 people who may have been exposed to the virus have been identified and all of them will be monitored to see if they develop any symptoms.

According to an internal report from Congo’s biomedical laboratory, three people from the densely populated Butsili neighbourhood in Beni experienced Ebola-like symptoms and died last month. None of them were tested for Ebola. All three of them were the neighbours of the toddler who died on Wednesday.

The disease causes severe vomiting and diarrhoea, and spreads through contact with body fluids. Ebola was first discovered in 1976, in the equatorial forest near the Ebola River. Congo has recorded 12 Ebola outbreaks since the first reporting of the disease.

Even though treatments were developed after the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, that have significantly reduced the death rates when cases were detected early, the disease kills about half of the people who are infected.

Two highly effective vaccines produced by Merck and Johnson & Johnson are used to control the infections since 2014-2016 outbreak.

The Ebola outbreak of 2018-2020 became as lethal as it did as the response was obstructed by the mistrust of local population on the medical workers. The violence created by some of the armed militia groups active in eastern Congo also hindered the efforts to fight the disease.

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