KINSHASA, Congo - Congolese officials say lab results have confirmed a deadly illness outbreak in southeastern Congo as Ebola fever.
Health Minister Makwenge Kaput said Monday the U.S. Center for Disease Control in Atlanta and another lab in Gabon had confirmed the disease as a hemorrhagic fever, and specifically as Ebola.
More than 100 people have died of the illness in the affected region since late August.
Makwenge did not provide further details or say if the outbreak had since been contained.
Medical inspectors had previously said that people began dying after high-profile funerals of two village chiefs in the region where relatives usually wash the bodies of the deceased by hand.
By the end of August, four villages had been affected and 217 people had come down with the illness, including 103 who died.
Congo's last major Ebola outbreak struck in Kikwit in 1995, killing 245 people.
