100 dead in suspected Congo plague outbreak-UN

GENEVA, June 14 (Reuters) One hundred people are reported dead in a suspected outbreak of pneumonic plague in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said today.

It said 19 of the deaths were around the northeast Ituri district, which is know to be the most active area of human plague in the world with 1,000 cases each year.

Some cases of bubonic plague had also been reported, the United Nations' health agency added, but there were no figures.

A team of specialists from the WHO, the Medecins sans Frontiers (Doctors without Borders) relief agency and the Congolese Ministry of Health were in the area to assess the situation, it added.

But control measures were difficult to implement because of continuing security problems in the war-scarred Central African country.

Reuters CH GC1843