Nine thousand and sixty-six. That's Congo's confirmed Ebola count now. And over the weekend, Washington quietly signed off on another month of travel restrictions. It's Wednesday, October 14th, and you're listening to Ebola Watch. Two items today: the new national tally out of Kinshasa, and the CDC order that answers the question we left hanging on Monday. If today's show was useful, follow us wherever you're listening — the next one will be waiting.
Xinhua, reporting from Kinshasa:
The country's task force on Ebola released a situation report on Tuesday, showing that 9,066 confirmed cases and 4,381 deaths had been recorded as of Oct. 11, bringing the overall case fatality rate to 48.3 percent. A total of 2,389 patients have recovered.
The last figure we gave you was 8,728 confirmed as of October 6th. How big a jump is this? Three hundred thirty-eight more confirmed cases and 176 more deaths between those two cutoffs. Roughly 68 confirmed a day, near the seven-day average of 72 WHO reported last week. The fatality rate, 48.3 percent, barely moved from 48.2. Give me the map, though. Ituri, in the northeast against the Ugandan border, accounts for 73.8 percent of all confirmed cases. North Kivu, just south of it, has the highest case fatality rate, 57.1 percent. And the outbreak now touches 65 health zones across seven provinces, up from the 64 we'd been citing. One more zone sounds small until you live in it. Fair. One asterisk: Xinhua dates these figures as of October 11th, while UAN World describes the identical totals as running through the 12th. And International Medical Corps, in its own report Tuesday, calls the spread across seven provinces uncontrolled. That's their word. So nobody should be saying it's turning. Not nationally, not at this pace.
From Uganda's Daily Monitor, carried by The Citizen:
“Although the country has achieved successful containment of the outbreak, continued overland travel from DRC poses an ongoing risk of cross-border transmission, particularly among healthcare workers and in western Ugandan districts that serve as points of entry for travellers seeking medical care,” the agency said.
On Monday we pointed out that the U.S. entry ban was due to lapse Sunday the 11th, and nobody had said what came next. Answer: a CDC notice dated that Sunday keeps them for 30 more days. Per Nairobi News, it covers certain foreign nationals who were in DRC, Uganda or South Sudan within 21 days; Briefly News calls it the fifth renewal since May. And Uganda stays listed though it declared its outbreak over July 28th, after 20 confirmed cases and two deaths, plus one probable case and one probable death. CDC's reason is that quote: overland traffic from Congo. Here's what I keep staring at. Kenya isn't on the list. The one case that actually got on a plane landed in Nairobi. The notice does cite that case, though it dates his Kampala-to-Nairobi flight October 2nd, where earlier reporting said the 3rd. It also cites contact tracing in Congo falling to 80 percent coverage from 87 in September, below the 95 percent it considers necessary. And the pushback? Unchanged. Africa CDC's Jean Kaseya has called the restrictions a double standard, and WHO's Africa regional director, Mohamed Yakub Janabi, says border closures and travel restrictions have no scientific backing. Those are their positions; the notice is CDC's. So, practically: if you're a non-U.S. citizen who's been in any of those three countries in the last three weeks, plan on these rules for the next 30 days. U.S. citizens fall under separate CDC rules, so check CDC's own travel pages before you book.
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Tomorrow, Thursday, we'll check whether that daily pace holds. Sources for both stories are in the show notes. Ebola Watch is made by Lantern Podcasts. Thanks for spending a few minutes with us.