The DRC early last month declared its latest Ebola outbreak over, more than two months after the virus re-emerged in the northwestern Equateur province.

Last week, however, the World Health Organization said DR Congo was investigating a suspected case.

The sample from a 46-year-old woman who died on August 15 in Beni city, North Kivu province, “tested positive” for Ebola, DR Congo’s health ministry said in a statement published late Monday.

It added that tests showed the case is linked to a previous strain of the virus from 2018 and was not a new variant.

The ministry sought to reassure the public that officials were “hard at work on the ground” to respond to the situation.

Around 160 people have been identified as contact cases, it added.

Ebola is an often fatal viral haemorrhagic fever. The disease was named after a river in Zaire, as the country was known when it was discovered.

Human transmission is through body fluids, with the main symptoms being fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhoea.

Over 120 militias roam the DRC’s mineral-rich but volatile east, where attacks on civilians are routine.

The deaths occurred in the village of Gina in Ituri province, “during an incursion by the #CODECO-UDPC and ALC” groups, the Kivu Security Tracker (KST) said on Twitter.

“They also attacked #Nizi, in the same territory,” it said.

The assault began at 4:00 am and lasted for seven hours until the armed forces regained control of the area, one of its specialists told AFP, asking not to be identified.

Ituri is one of three eastern provinces in the vast Democratic Republic of Congo battling armed groups.

The gold-rich province has a long history of ethnic feuds, some of which are rooted in long-standing herder-farmer disputes over cattle.

Fighting between the Hema and Lendu communities flared between 1999 and 2003, claiming tens of thousands of lives.

It was quelled by the intervention of a European Union peacekeeping force, Artemis.

Violence resumed in 2017, blamed on the emergence of the Cooperative for the Development of the Congo (CODECO), an armed group that claims to defend Lendu interests. CODECO has since split into several rival factions.

The village of Gina is mainly inhabited by Lendu, and before the attack was under the control of the armed forces.

CODECO fighters joined up with another armed group, the Alliance for the Liberation of the Congo (ALC), to carry out the raid, the KST said.

A vehicle used by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) came under attack in the same area, the charity said earlier.

Ituri and neighbouring North Kivu were placed under a “state of siege” on May 6 — an exceptional measure aimed at combatting armed groups, especially the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), which has been blamed for taking thousands of lives.

Under this tactic, the authorities have replaced senior civilian officials in the two provinces with military or police officers.

The free web-based encyclopedia project which contains information on a wide variety of subjects described a failed state as a political body that has disintegrated to a point where basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government no longer function properly.

It further added that a state can also fail if the government loses its legitimacy even if it is performing its functions properly. For a stable state, it is necessary for the government to enjoy both effectiveness and legitimacy. Likewise, when a nation weakens and it’s standard of living declines, it introduces the possibility of total governmental collapse.

Some countries listed as a failed state include; Syria, Somalia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Iraq, Yemen, Turkey, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Rwanda, Liberia, Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Sudan, South Sudan.