Ebola outbreak death toll rises to 11

LIBREVILLE, Gabon -- Health experts were headed Monday to the central African nation of Gabon, where 11 people have died from the highly contagious Ebola virus -- and the number was expected to rise.

It was not immediately clear how many people were infected, or over what period. Government officials first said they suspected an outbreak last Tuesday, after villagers reported finding an unusually high number of dead primates, including gorillas and chimpanzees, World Wildlife Fund representative Allogo Ndong said in the capital, Libreville.

Around the same time, patients began turning up with symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea.

The World Health Organization confirmed the outbreak Sunday, saying it was in the remote northeastern province of Ogooue Ivindo, where 45 people were killed when Ebola last struck in 1996-7. The area is near the border of the Republic of Congo.

The deaths, mostly in one extended family, so far appeared to have occurred last week, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said in Geneva. The toll was rising as experts were getting a better idea of the extent of the outbreak, he said.

It is the first documented outbreak of Ebola since last year, when 224 people died from the virus in Uganda.