Ebola: "Urgent" meeting of African health ministers, more than 10,000 confirmed cases

The Africa CDC convened an "urgent" virtual meeting of several African health ministers on Wednesday afternoon, October 28. Announced last week, just after the discovery of a case in Nigeria, the meeting comes as the Ebola Bundibugyo virus has been detected in three regions of the continent, with patients identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya, and Nigeria. Five months after the start of the epidemic, the number of confirmed cases has surpassed 10,000.

According to the organization, this meeting should allow them "to assess the situation, strengthen cross-border coordination, accelerate support to affected countries and consolidate continent-wide preparedness."

This "collective mobilization" is not necessarily a given, especially as the spread of the virus threatens to create diplomatic tensions. The case of the patient who tested positive in Nigeria has shown this: many questions remain about the origin of her infection.

This diplomat's wife had just spent two weeks in Uganda. Officially, however, the country has been free of the Ebola virus since the end of August. The patient is now being treated in Switzerland. She could have been infected "anywhere," according to the director of the Africa CDC, who believes that the spread of the virus has shown that border controls are "not up to standard."

More than 10,000 confirmed cases, nearly 5,000 deaths

On Tuesday, October 27, health authorities announced that the number of confirmed Ebola cases had surpassed 10,000, the vast majority in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Five months after the start of this new epidemic, there have been nearly 5,000 deaths in total. In the DRC, the mortality rate is approaching 50%, according to the Congolese Institute of Public Health.

In Kenya, several contact cases are still under observation, after the detection of nine positive cases and the death of two of these patients.