KINSHASA, Oct. 19 -- Two men in their twenties from the Wapinda health zone have given Congo's Ebola epidemic a new province, and the health ministry has not said how they caught the virus. One of them has died.

The ministry's Sunday report places the cases in Nord-Ubangi, a northern province on the border with the Central African Republic. It is the eighth province the Congo Ebola outbreak has reached since it was declared in May.

The confirmation came four days after a former health minister, now a member of parliament, announced the same two cases on social media. Jean-Jacques Mbungani Mbanda said repeated tests at the national biomedical research institute in Kinshasa had confirmed them and that the ministry would speak shortly. Whe...