Two official death counts for one province

On Monday the governor of North Kivu, General Évariste Somo Kakule, declared a “Stop Ebola” day that shut down Beni, Butembo, Oïcha, Lubero-centre and Kasindi-Lubiriha¹. He said that by 17 October the province had 1,252 Ebola deaths and an estimated case-fatality rate of 60%, according to Radio Okapi¹.

The other count. The national situation report number 157, for 18 October, gives North Kivu 2,084 confirmed cases and 1,176 confirmed deaths, a fatality rate of 56.4%². Nationally it counts 9,552 confirmed cases, 4,602 confirmed deaths, 937 patients in isolation and 2,550 recoveries^2,3. The ECDC, the EU’s disease agency, uses the same national figures³.

The likely reason. CongoNews points out that the national bulletin counts only laboratory-confirmed cases and deaths, and says so¹. A provincial count can add probable deaths: people who died with typical symptoms but whose sample was never validated¹. With 30 community deaths reported in a single day, the gap between the two series would grow mechanically over time^1,2. The outlet is careful to call this a hypothesis, because neither office has explained its method¹.

Why it matters. A 60% fatality rate and a 56.4% rate describe different epidemics, and they lead to different decisions about beds, teams and which zones come first¹. Donors work from the national bulletin; provincial decisions, such as Monday’s shutdown, rest on the local count¹.

The fix is clerical. It would take one line from either office to say whether the provincial figure includes probable deaths¹. That is the kind of small, boring correction that makes a response easier to run.