Congo’s Ebola outbreak started months before it was declared, says WHO

The fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record started in February, months before it was officially declared in mid-May, the World Health Organization said on Monday, as responders in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) struggle to catch up.

The WHO regional director for Africa, Mohamed Yakub Janabi, told a press conference that sequencing indicated the outbreak’s start. He said some cases early in the outbreak were wrongly attributed to malaria and typhoid.

“So we are chasing the virus,...