By Ange Kasongo
KINSHASA, May 21 (Reuters) - Suspected cases of Ebola have been reported in a rebel-held part of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo's South Kivu province, hundreds of kilometres from the outbreak's epicentre, local officials said on Thursday.
If confirmed, cases in South Kivu would signal a worrying expansion of an outbreak that experts believe circulated for around two months in Ituri province - several hundred kilometres to the north - before being detected last week.
The World Health
Organization at the weekend declared the outbreak of the virus' Bundibugyo strain, for which there is no vaccine, a public health emergency of international concern.
The outbreak has been linked to 139 deaths and there were 600 suspected cases in eastern DRC's Ituri and North Kivu provinces as of Wednesday, according to the WHO. Two cases have also been confirmed in neighboring Uganda.
Two suspected cases have been detected in South Kivu, regional health spokesperson Claude Bahizire told Reuters.
One died in Lwiro territory while the other is in isolation awaiting test results, he said.
M23 REBELS PLEDGE TO WORK WITH INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS
Another local official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the patient who died had recently come from Ituri.
Lwiro is controlled by the M23 rebel group, which seized control of large swathes of eastern DRC last year. An Ebola case was confirmed last week in M23-held Goma, the capital of neighbouring North Kivu province.
M23, which is backed by neighbouring Rwanda, said earlier this week that it was committed to working with international partners to contain the outbreak.
The response has been complicated by the virus' presence in densely populated urban areas and widespread armed violence in eastern DRC.
A 2018-2020 outbreak in the region of the Zaire strain of Ebola was the second-deadliest on record, killing nearly 2,300 people.
This time, first responders say they lack basic supplies, which some have attributed to foreign aid cuts by major international donors.
(Additional reporting and writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
