The Ebola epidemic in Zaire appears to have spread from the quarantined city of Kikwit to at least two other locations.

Sources in the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told Newsday yesterday that there are indications that the deadly Ebola virus, which first surfaced in Kikwit sometime in February, has spread to two small villages located closer to the Zairian capital, Kinshasa.

In one town, Musango, at least 10 hospital patients and workers reportedly became infected following the arrival of a nun from Kikwit, who later died of Ebola.

The disease, which is 90 percent fatal, is primarily spread by direct contact with contaminated blood or syringes.

Kikwit is the largest urban center for the province of Bandundu, which is inhabited by some 6 million people. Dozens of people in the Bandundu region have died, but reports of the number of deaths due to Ebola vary wildly.

Yesterday Reuter reported that Kinshasa authorities were ordering a quarantine of the entire province out of concern that the virus might reach the capital, where an estimated 4 million to 6 million people live.

"If the disease penetrates to Kinshasa, that will be a catastrophe," said the capital's governor, Bernadin Mungul Diaka.

WHO's Dr. David Heymann is in Zaire to help confirm and control the spread of Ebola, along with volunteers from the Brussels-based group Doctors Without Borders. Heymann's small team was augmented last night by three American experts from the CDC.

"I suspect we're going to soon be hearing that that's not enough people," said Dr. Jim Hughes, director of the CDC's division of infectious diseases.

To contain the virus, the 350-bed Kikwit hospital was cleared out except for about 20 infected patients and hospital staffers who had been exposed to the virus, said Doctors Without Borders spokeswoman Veerle Eygenraam.

"It is quite serious because it is a very infectious virus. But we have found out about it very early and in hospitals, and we have taken all the necessary measures to decrease transmission," Eygenraam said.

She said 20 deaths from Ebola were confirmed as of Tuesday and 61 others have died from bloody diarrhea, which tests may show to have been caused by Ebola or the bacteria shigella. Other reports had more than 170 deaths in Kikwit.

Meanwhile, the CDC Special Pathogens Laboratory, which confirmed the outbreak was Ebola, has analyzed the DNA of the viral samples sent earlier this week from Kikwit. The lab has found extremely close DNA identity between the Kikwit virus and the strain of Ebola that was recovered from patients in the previous Zairian outbreak -- 19 years ago in Yambuku, hundreds of miles away -- in which 274 people died.