UPDATE #1., #2
The image to the side is freely available to download from here or from figshare (CC BT 4.0 license and a DOI) alongside with yesterday’s images gets us a little closer to the area of Ebola virus activity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
I’ve added some Google map enlargements [3] to show the adjacent rivers that link to Lake Tumba on which the town of Bikoro, shown from a Google satellite image, sits.
What’s new?
The only news story that added new information came from STAT news and Helen Branswell who has used her spectacular network of contacts to provide some new insights.[1]
Interesting new information including…
- an outline the difficulties with aid getting to the town of Bikoro (population 163,000 in 2012 [8]) via road
- a note that a second separate region also has suspected EVD cases, the village of Ikoko Impenge (see one of the insets – map from SOS International)
- news that the Ebola virus vaccine (Merck’s rVSV-ZEBOV [4,5]) may well be deployed in the near future
- concerns that water traffic may be a way for transmission to spread outwards and downstream to some much larger populations areas including Kinshasa (approximately 11 million people [6]) Brazzaville (approximately 2 million people [6]) more widely, more rapidly than land routes would otherwise permit.
References…
- WHO officials fear latest Ebola outbreak in Congo could spread to big cities
https://www.statnews.com/2018/05/09/new-ebola-outbreak-congo-raises-who-concerns/ - Ebola virus outbreak, Bikoro, DRC, May 2018
https://figshare.com/articles/Ebola_virus_outbreak_Bikoro_DRC_May_2018/6233540/3 - https://goo.gl/maps/YgPDN5xqRHH2
- https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(18)30165-8/fulltext
- Ebola returns to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): Zaire…
https://virologydownunder.blogspot.com.au/2017/05/ebola-returns-to-democratic-republic-of.html - https://www.cia.gov/library/Publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cg.html
- Ebola virus disease outbreak in the DRC
https://virologydownunder.com/ebola-virus-disease-outbreak-in-the-drc/ - First Ebola death, 11 additional cases confirmed in Congo
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/10/health/drc-confirms-first-ebola-death/index.html - International SOS map and details abotu DRC Ebola virus disease outbreak
https://www.internationalsos.com/countryguide/medicalalerts.aspx?languageid=ENG&countryid=13&reportid=104826#
Updates…
- Population total update for Bikoro
- Corrected messed up the location of the village of Ikoko Impenge – my apologies to all!
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