The Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday confirmed its first cases of Ebola in the epidemic that has affected four other African nations, international media reports.

"The results are positive. The Ebola virus is confirmed in DRC," Health Minister Felix Kabange Numbi has told AFP, referring to testing that had been undertaken on people infected with a previously unidentified fever that has already killed 13 since mid-August in the north-west of the country.

Ironically, DR of Congo, earlier known as Zaire, was the country in which the first ever outbreak of the virus was reported in 1976. Ebola Virus was actually named after the river which flowed by the village where that outbreak happened.

Around 1500 people from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria have died in the Ebola epidemic which is by far the most deadly in history.