The last patients with confirmed Ebola diagnoses have left a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) treatment center in Mongbwalu, Ituri province, as national data showed 77 new confirmed cases across the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
MSF said all patients at the facility with confirmed diagnoses had recovered before they left. Their discharges left no confirmed cases under care at Mongbwalu, the first time the center had reached that status since May's outbreak declaration. MSF described the development as a moment of joy and celebration.
That milestone applies to one treatment site. MSF's response update lists 65 beds at Mongbwalu and says it receives people suspected of having Ebola as well as patients with confirmed cases.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo's National Institute of Public Health (INSP) reported 77 new confirmed cases and 34 deaths for the period ending Oct. 29. Its situation report, released Oct. 30, put the national cumulative total at 10,351 confirmed cases and 5,026 deaths.
The Oct. 29 figures also included 2,788 recoveries and 1,101 people in isolation or treatment centers. INSP listed a 48.6% case-fatality rate.
INSP's Oct. 25 tally was 10,060 confirmed cases and 4,887 deaths. EconoTimes previously covered that earlier tally.
MSF said response teams were working in six of the eight provinces affected by the outbreak, with daily case detection continuing elsewhere and sometimes reaching dozens. Anthony Kergosien, MSF's emergency coordinator in the country, said, “The outbreak is not shrinking, it is moving.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) classifies the illness as Bundibugyo virus disease. In its Oct. 23 update, WHO described transmission as elevated based on information through Oct. 20, when its count stood at 9,704 confirmed cases and 4,687 deaths. WHO also identified the episode as the DRC's second documented Bundibugyo outbreak, after 2012, and the largest Ebola outbreak recorded in the country.
