Africa’s latest Ebola outbreak has passed 10,000 confirmed cases, the vast majority in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congolese health authorities said on Tuesday, according to Africanews. The outlet also reported almost 5,000 fatalities from the outbreak.
Figures released Tuesday by the country’s Ministry of Public Health put the DRC total at 10,060 confirmed cases and 4,887 deaths, according to allAfrica. Africanews’s figure of more than 10,000 comes from its headline and a short excerpt, and the full article was not available for this report, so the two accounts cannot be compared in full.
Healthcare workers were filmed celebrating at an Ebola treatment centre in DR Congo after the last patient left, according to Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera was available only as a headline and short excerpt, so the treatment centre, the date and the number of patients discharged are not confirmed.
The World Health Organization said Ebola survivors may transmit the virus through sexual intercourse if it persists in their semen after recovery. Where semen testing is unavailable, it recommends that male survivors practise safer sex for 12 months, according to allAfrica.
The WHO also said survivors who met discharge criteria are not expected to transmit the virus through sweat or saliva. People who are still actively ill could transmit it through sweat and other bodily fluids, according to allAfrica.
Separately, Nigeria confirmed an imported case on 20 October. The patient was a 42-year-old Ugandan-born woman living in Abuja, who was evacuated to Switzerland with her husband on 26 October, according to allAfrica. The WHO said Nigeria had no active confirmed cases after the evacuation, and health authorities continued monitoring contacts.
allAfrica describes the ongoing outbreak as involving the DRC and Kenya, but it gives no details on Kenya, and no case numbers for the country were reported.
Several key facts rest on a single outlet. The 10,000 figure is from Africanews’s headline and excerpt only. The sources do not give a start date for the outbreak, the date of the Tuesday announcement, or whether the 10,000 figure covers all of Africa or only confirmed cases in the DRC, beyond the phrasing that most are in the DRC. The DRC ministry’s figures have not been independently confirmed by a second source, and no response from the WHO or DRC authorities beyond the cited figures and guidance was included.
Watch for updated case and death counts from the DRC Ministry of Public Health and the WHO, follow-up on Nigeria’s monitoring of contacts, and any further guidance for survivors.
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This article was written with AI assistance from the published reporting listed above. It is part of the World Brief daily news podcast.