An Ebola case has been detected in a province in the northwestern corner of Democratic Republic of Congo, far from the epicentre of the country's most lethal outbreak on record, an official said on Friday.

The case involves a man who died on Tuesday in the town of Gwaka, according to Jean-Rene Galekwa Vundawe, the acting governor of Sud-Ubangi province where the town is located. He travelled from South Kivu province in eastern Congo through Rwanda and Uganda before re-entering Congo and arriving in Sud-Ubangi, which borders Republic of Congo and Central African Republic.

Jean-Jacques Muyembe, head of Congo's National Institute for Biomedical Research in Kinshasa, confirmed on Friday that the man had tested positive for Ebola.

Authorities fear a large number of contacts due to the patient's use of road and river transport, with neighbouring provinces and countries potentially at risk, Jean-Jacques Mbungani, a former health minister and a lawmaker from the area, said in a post on X.

Local transmission has not yet been confirmed in Sud-Ubangi, meaning it has not been added to the list of provinces officially affected by the epidemic, which was first confirmed in mid-May.

The ongoing Ebola outbreak, Congo's 17th, has so far infected 6 942 people, including 3 349 deaths, according to the latest government data. It is the second-largest outbreak on record, behind the outbreak in West Africa that lasted from 2014 to 2016.