KINSHASA: More than 1,000 people have died from Ebola in eastern Congo, international media reported.

Health Minister Oly Ilunga said that four deaths in Katwa pushed the death toll to 1,008 since August. Two more deaths were reported in the city of Butembo.

The outbreak announced almost nine months ago has already caused the most deaths behind the 2014-2016 outbreak in West Africa’s Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia that killed more than 11,000 people.

Insecurity has become a “major impediment” to combating the outbreak, Michael Ryan, WHO’s health emergencies chief, told reporters in Geneva earlier Friday.