Ebola cases top 10,000 in Congo as EU experts head to Nigeria
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control is sending a team to Abuja. More contacts have tested positive in Kenya. The risk to Europeans remains 'very low.'
Archive image · Photo: MONUSCO Photos / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped and resized)
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has surpassed 10,000 cases. Against that backdrop, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said on Oct. 27 it was sending a team led by its senior epidemic intelligence expert to Nigeria's capital, Abuja. The experts will help with surveillance, contact tracing, infection prevention and preparedness. Nigeria is the fourth African country to report a confirmed Ebola case.
In Kenya, which reported its first case on Oct. 6, eight contacts of confirmed patients had developed symptoms and tested positive as of Monday. The United Nations said 20 other contacts had been released from quarantine. The ECDC rates the likelihood of infection among Europeans as "very low"; for people living in or travelling to affected areas of Kenya and Nigeria, the risk is low.