NAIROBI, 5 October 2007 (IRIN) - CONTENTS:

UGANDA: New Marburg fever case confirmed DRC: Monitoring of Ebola "must continue" DRC: Thousands of refugees return home - UNHCR DRC: MONUC rejects claims of army link to militia groups CONGO: Ntoumi "problem" is solved, says President BURUNDI: Nkurunziza strikes deal to end political stalemate

See also:

KENYA: Private agony of public clinics http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=74596

UGANDA: Picking up the Pieces  http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=74590

UGANDA: New Marburg fever case confirmed

A case of Marburg haemorrhagic fever was reported in western Uganda almost two months after an outbreak of the fever was contained, health officials said on 3 October.

"Our preliminary investigations suggest that a mine worker re-entered the [Kitaka gold] mine, which had earlier been closed before he contracted the disease," according to a statement by the Ugandan health ministry signed by the director-general of health services, Sam Zaramba.

The mine is in Kamwenge, 400km west of the Ugandan capital, Kampala, near the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. "The case has been identified, isolated and confined in one of the health facilities in the country," the statement said.

Experts from the ministry were following up on anybody who could have had contact with the victim, according to the statement. [Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=74620 ] [See also: Darfur attackers "committed war crimes" http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=74594 ]

DRC: Monitoring of Ebola "must continue"

Health specialists agree that surveillance and monitoring of an Ebola epidemic have to be maintained, despite falls in the numbers of people affected in the province of Kasai Occidental in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"There are fewer and fewer cases but that is not to say the epidemic is over ... the new case shows that the virus is still circulating and that it is necessary to maintain the same level of surveillance, care and screening," Dominique Legros, an epidemiologist with the UN World Health Organization, said. [Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=74621 ]

DRC: Thousands of refugees return home - UNHCR

At least 43,000 refugees returned to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between January and October, with another 310,000 still in neighbouring countries, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Most of the returnees went to the provinces of South Kivu in the east, Equateur in the northeast and Katanga in the south, UNHCR stated in a report detailing figures of returns to and from the DRC.

"The successful return of 43,000 Congolese refugees this year is the result of the hard work by UNHCR staff in the field; they often work under difficult conditions in isolated places like Baraka in South Kivu," Eusebe Hounsokou, the UNHCR representative to the DRC, said on 4 October from Kinshasa, the capital. [Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=74641 ]

DRC: MONUC rejects claims of army link to militia groups

The UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) has no evidence that the Congolese army has joined forces with outlawed Hutu and Mayi-Mayi militia groups to purge a rebellion by dissident army commander, Gen Laurent Nkunda, a spokesman for MONUC said on 3 October.

MONUC's military spokesman, Maj Gabriel de Brosses, was reacting to media reports indicating that a new alliance, known as the Front for the Liberation of North Kivu, was patrolling parts of eastern Congo alongside the army. The Congolese government has vowed to eliminate from its eastern provinces armed militiamen known as the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), which include in their ranks some of the perpetrators of neighbouring Rwanda's 1994 genocide. [Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=74618 ]

CONGO: Ntoumi "problem" is solved, says President

The Congolese President, Denis Sassou Nguesso, has called on former rebel leader Frédéric Bintsangou, alias Pasteur Ntoumi, to return to Brazzaville to take up his general delegate post "without conditions".

"Today, [we can say] there no longer is a Ntoumi problem in the country. He should come to take up office without conditions," Nguesso told the media on 4 October.

Ntoumi was appointed to the position of general delegate in charge of the promotion of peace and post-conflict reconstruction by presidential decree in May.

[Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=74661 ]

BURUNDI: Nkurunziza strikes deal to end political stalemate

After many weeks of a political deadlock that saw the Burundian parliament fail to pass any laws, President Pierre Nkurunziza has announced a deal with opposition parties to end the stalemate, a move welcomed by political analysts and observers as positive for the country's peace process.

"Burundi needs to settle this internal political crisis; and we can only welcome Nkurunziza's change of tone since his previous speech in August, which was critical of the opposition," David Mugnier, the central Africa project director of the International Crisis Group (ICG) said on 1 October in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.

Mugnier was commenting on Nkurunziza's announcement that he had reached an agreement with opposition parties represented in the National Assembly to end the standoff that had paralysed the country's political institutions. [Full report: http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=74576 ]

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