Ebola: DR Congo Cases Test Positive For Different Strain of Virus

Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) health workers disinfect protection clothes and boots outside the isolation unit at ELWA hospital during the visit of Senior United Nations (U.N.) System Coordinator for Ebola David Nabarro (not pictured), in Monrovia August 23, 2014. As the outbreak has spread across borders from its initial epicentre in Guinea, governments in the region have introduced increasingly strict travel restrictions. Ivory Coast has closed its land borders Guinea and Liberia to try to prevent the virus from crossing onto its territory, the government announced late on Friday. REUTERS/2Tango

Two Ebola deaths have been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of Congo where 13 others have died recently, prompting the health minister to declare an Ebola epidemic in one of the affected regions of the central African country.

Minister Felix Kabange Numbi said that two of eight samples from the northwest Equateur province came back positive for Ebola, reports AP.

The minister said 11 people were sick and in isolation and that 80 contacts were being traced.

"I declare an Ebola epidemic in the region of Djera, in the territory of Boende in the province of Equateur," Numbi said.

Officials now believe Ebola has killed 13 people in the region, including five health workers.

However, this appears to be a strain of the virus different from the one that has claimed over 1400 lives in west Africa.

One of the cases tested positive was for the Sudanese strain of the disease, while the other was a mixture of the Sudanese and the Zaire strain, the health official said.

The Zaire strain is the one responsible for the current West African epidemic.

The confirmations follows local reports of a 'mysterious' haemorrhagic fever, which claimed the lives of 13 people. Those tested positive come from a region where an outbreak of hemorrhagic gastroenteritis has killed 70 people in recent weeks, said WHO.

Congo has been hit by Ebola outbreaks seven times before.

The latest Ebola epidemic in west Africa has resulted in 2615 cases and 1427 deaths.

Sierra Leone has been hit the hardest with at least 910 cases and 392 deaths. Other affected countries include Guinea, Liberia and Nigeria.

Meanwhile, Nigeria has recorded fresh cases of Ebola infection, Minister of Health Onyebuchi Chukwu said. The new cases are spouses of health workers who had primary contacts with the index case, Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian-American, who brought the virus to Africa's most populous country.

Earthquake Rocks South Peru In Sparsely Populated Region

The latest earthquake in Peru follows the one in San Francisco on Sunday. A car drives over cracked asphalt along Highway 12 after a 6.0 earthquake in Napa, California.. A 6.0 earthquake rocked wine county north of San Francisco early Sunday, injuring dozens of people, damaging historical buildings, setting some homes on fire and causing power outages around the picturesque town of Napa. The quake, the biggest in the region in 25 years, jolted many residents out of bed when it hit at 3:20 a.m. (1020 GMT). It was centred 6 miles (10 km) south of the city of Napa, which is located about 50 miles northeast of San Francisco. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

A 6.9-magnitude earthquake has rocked a sparsely populated area of southern Peru, the US Geological Survey said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage, reports AFP.

According to the survey's updated figures, the quake occurred at 2321 GMT on Sunday and was centred about 42 kilometres east-northeast of Tambo town and had a depth of 101 kilometres.

The quake sent people rushing into the streets in Ayacucho city which has a population of 150,000. In Cusco in southeastern Peru, cellphone and power outages were reported.

In the capital Lima, a magnitude 7 quake was felt as a 4.4-magnitude occurrence.

The quake came just hours after a powerful 6.0 earthquake injured nearly 200 people and damaged buildings in the San Francisco Bay area in California.

Libya's Tripoli Airport Seized by Misrata Extremists

A fighter from Zintan brigade watches as smoke rises after rockets fired by one of Libya's militias struck and ignited a fuel tank in TripoliReuters file photo

An Islamist militia has claimed control of Tripoli's main airport after month-long clashes with a rival faction raising further tensions in embattled Libya.

The newly-installed government, which the Islamists consider illegal, has condemned the airport seizure by the armed militants, who are from the Libyan city of Misrata.

Local channels also reported that the airport has fallen into the hands of the Misrata extremists, amidst the ongoing fighting in other parts of Tripoli and Benghazi.

The militias which were part of the Nato-backed campaign that led to the downfall of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi have been engaged in a bitter battle for power.

Meanwhile, unidentified fighter jets have bombed key facilities of the militia alliance, known as Libya Dawn, killing at least 12 people, according to the state-run news agency Lana.

The militia has alleged that the warplanes were from Egypt and the UAE, but Libyan authorities have pleaded ignorance.

Air traffic remains disrupted from and to Tripoli airport since the fighting broke out last month. Most international airlines have suspended their services.

The airport, often a flashpoint of the conflict, had been controlled for nearly three years by moderate militias, hailing from the western city of Zintan, who took over shortly after the ouster of Gaddafi.

If the latest seizure is confirmed, analysts say it will be a huge setback for moderate forces, further increasing the threat of Islamist radicalism in the Middle East.