Ebola surpasses 10,000 cases and kills 4,887 in DRC
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Daily Maverick
The Ebola epidemic in the DRC has surpassed 10,000 cases, with 4,887 deaths recorded by the National Institute of Public Health. The country’s deadliest outbreak has spread to several African states, including Kenya and Nigeria, according to the latest health figures reported by Daily Maverick.
The Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo has reached 10,060 cases and 4,887 deaths, according to the latest figures from the Congolese Institute of Public Health reported by Reuters. It is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the virus.
Declared in mid-May, the epidemic has become the largest and deadliest recorded in the DRC, surpassing that of 2018-2020. Worldwide, it is now the second-largest, behind the 2014-2016 West Africa epidemic, which infected more than 28,600 people and killed more than 11,000, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The Congolese toll has risen from the 9,704 cases and 4,687 deaths recorded in the DRC on 24 October. The epidemic has also spread to other African countries, as reported in our article on the four other countries affected by Ebola, published on 23 October.
Kenya has reported nine cases after an initial case linked to travel from the DRC via Uganda. Nigeria has also reported a case, that of the wife of a Swiss diplomat who had not travelled to the DRC. Switzerland said she was likely infected in Uganda; she and her husband were transferred to Swiss hospitals on Monday.
Uganda reported 20 cases in May and June, mainly imported from the DRC, before the World Health Organisation declared the country free of Ebola in August. Uganda’s health minister announced on Sunday that citizens returning from the DRC would be placed in quarantine for 21 days.
