Ebola: fewer cases a day, more deaths a day

The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s bulletin for 23 October reports 60 new confirmed Ebola cases and 46 deaths¹. Since the Bundibugyo outbreak began there have been 9,876 confirmed cases and 4,803 deaths; 48.6% of patients have died¹.

The weekly view is mixed. Over the past seven days the outbreak averaged 65.9 new cases and 38.1 deaths a day, against 71.6 cases and 31.6 deaths the week before¹. No new health zone has been affected since 16 October; the outbreak remains in 66 zones across eight provinces¹. Desk arithmetic: cases a day fell by about 8%, deaths a day rose by about 21%.

Of the 46 deaths, 31 happened in the community, outside a treatment centre¹. That is the number to worry about: a death at home is a death the system did not reach in time, and often a body handled without protection.

The machinery is working, unevenly. Teams followed up 88.4% of contacts that day, 32,023 of 36,218¹. Since 26 August, 9,415 people have received the Ervebo vaccine¹. Positive tests were 13.3% of 450 samples¹. None of these figures will trend online. All of them decide how this ends.