CONGO EBOLA CASES

FOUR new cases have have been confirmed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the health ministry said, as authorities prepare to deploy an experimental treatment.

The latest confirmed cases near the town of Mangina in Congo's North Kivu province bring the total for the current outbreak to 21, the ministry said in a  statement late on Friday.

Two more people   -one near Mangina and another in the city of Beni  -died of Ebola, the ministry said. In all, the hemorrhagic fever is believed to have killed 38 people, although several of these cases have not been confirmed.

Authorities this week  began vaccinating health workers and people who had contact with confirmed cases.

The experimental vaccine , manufactured by Merck, proved effective against an outbreak in western Congo that ended last month.

Officals are ready to use an experimental treatment called mAB114 on Ebola patients for the first time, Steve Ahuka, a virologist at the  national Institute for Biomedical Research  [INRB]  in the capital Kinshasa, told Reuters.

The treatment  was developed in  United States  using the antibodies of the survivor of Ebola outbreak in the  western Congolese city of  Kikwit in 1995 and was  100 percent effective when tested on monkeys.

''It's experimental. So we are following the protocols. It has been submitted to the ethical committee and the ethical committee gave its okay, '' Ahuka said, adding that it could be used within days.

He said other experimental treatments, including ZMapp, a similar antibody drug made by Mapp Biopharamecutials  in San Diego, could also be used. [Agencies].