DRC faces 'triple emergency' as Ebola potentially re-emerges alongside coronavirus

As countries across Africa prepare for potential surges of the novel COVID-19 coronavirus, some are still battling an older foe.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo said Friday that the first person to contract Ebola in more than 50 days, a 26-year-old man, has died. The man developed symptoms at the end of March and eventually tested positive, ending hopes that the latest outbreak of the disease in the country had subsided. The DRC was prepared to declare an end to the Ebola epidemic, the largest in the country's history, on Sunday, but that's no longer the case.

The disease has killed more than 2,200 people in the DRC — which is also dealing with turmoil from violent rebel attacks in the eastern part of the country and the coronavirus pandemic — since August 2018. "This is now a triple emergency: vulnerable populations facing ongoing humanitarian crises, the spread of COVID-19, and now again potentially a re-emerging Ebola crisis," said Kate Moger, the vice president of the International Rescue Committee's Great Lakes region. Read more at Reuters and Al Jazeera.

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