DAKAR, Senegal 

The death toll from Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has risen to 777 since the start of an outbreak in late July last year, the country’s Health Ministry said on Friday.

The outbreak of the Ebola, named after the Ebola River, which emerged for the first time in the world in the Yambuku village of the DRC in 1976, continues to threaten public health in the country.

The 10th Ebola outbreak, which began in July 2018 in the North Kivu province and later spread to the province of Ituri, became the deadliest outbreak in the country.

Previously, the first Ebola epidemic in 1976 was the deadliest with a total of 280 deaths.

Among 1,251 cases of reported hemorrhagic fever, 1,185 were confirmed to be Ebola cases, according to the Health Ministry.

Ebola is the second deadliest epidemic in the world with over 11,000 deaths between 2014 and 2017 across West African countries -- including Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

However, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it was not necessary to declare an “emergency”.

It said there is a need of $104 million to fund the Strategic Response Plan against Ebola until July.

Ebola -- a tropical fever which first appeared in 1976 in Sudan and the DRC -- can be transmitted to humans from wild animals.

It can also reportedly spread through contact with body fluids, infected persons or of those who have succumbed to the virus.

Ebola caused global alarm in 2014 when the world's worst outbreak began in West Africa, killing more than 11,300 people and infecting an estimated 28,600 as it swept through Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

*Writing by Burak Bir