LIBREVILLE, Gabon –– An international medical team tried Monday to trace people who might have been exposed to Ebola, as the number of deaths in the latest outbreak of the deadly disease rose to 12 in this Central African country.

Gabon health authorities have identified 16 suspected cases, including the people who died, the World Health Organization said in Geneva, Switzerland. Only two of the cases have been confirmed through laboratory tests, but medical authorities say symptoms in the 14 others strongly indicate Ebola.

Health workers were also watching 155 people who have had contact with the victims, WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said.

A 14-member team of experts from WHO and the health ministry traveled Friday to the remote, northeastern Ogooue Ivindo province, where the outbreak began. The team was tracing suspected cases and setting up an isolation unit to treat the victims, WHO said.

Ogooue Ivindo, a jungle area inhabited by pygmies and hunter tribes, is one of the most sparsely populated regions in Gabon. Ebola last struck there in 1996-97, killing 45 of the 60 people infected.

The latest outbreak has killed 10 members of an extended family and a nurse who treated one of the victims.

Details of the latest fatality were not immediately available.

The first death was recorded Dec. 2. in Ekata, about five miles from the Republic of Congo border. Other cases were reported in three nearby villages and two towns, Hartl said.

Ebola is one of the most deadly viral diseases known, causing death in 50 to 90 percent of those who become infected. There is no cure, but the disease usually kills its victims faster than it can spread, burning out before it can reach too far.

The virus is passed through contact with bodily fluids, such as mucus, saliva and blood. It incubates for four to 10 days. Eventually, the virus causes severe internal bleeding, vomiting and diarrhea.

WHO says over 800 people have died of the disease since the virus was first identified in 1976 in western Sudan and in a nearby region of Congo. The disease last struck in Uganda, killing 224 people last year.

© 2001 The Associated Press