THE deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is now an international health emergency, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced late yesterday after a case was confirmed in a city of two million people.

A WHO expert committee declined on three previous occasions to advise the United Nations health agency to make the declaration for this outbreak, even though other experts say it has long met the required conditions. 

More than 1,600 people have died since August in the second-deadliest Ebola outbreak in history, which is unfolding in a region long subjected to conflict.