HARARE, October 19. /TASS/. The number of confirmed Ebola deaths in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has exceeded 4,500 since May, with move than 9,400 cases registered in total, the country’s Ministry of Public Health, Hygiene and Social Welfare said.

"Since the beginning of the epidemic in the DRC, a total of 9,455 confirmed cases and 4,561 deaths have been recorded, with the fatality rate standing at 48.2%," the ministry said in its bulletin. It noted that the epicenter "remains Ituri Province, which accounts for 73.2% of all cases and 67.5% of new cases." The epidemic has spread to 66 of the DRC’s 178 health zones across eight provinces. A total of 269 healthcare workers have contracted Ebola.

The current Ebola outbreak began on May 15 in the DRC and Uganda. Ugandan authorities announced on July 28 that the outbreak in the country had ended. The World Health Organization confirmed this on August 25. In neighboring Kenya, the first case of Ebola was confirmed on October 6. The patient was a Kenyan national who had previously lived in the DRC. He arrived in Nairobi via Uganda on October 3 and died on October 5. As of October 19, a total of eight cases had been detected in Kenya.