WHO says suspected Ebola cases drop to 116 after hundreds ruled out

On Tuesday, World Health Organisation (WHO) said there have been 321 confirmed cases of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) outbreak and 116 suspected cases, recording a sharp decrease in the number of suspected cases as hundreds were later found not to be affected.

There have been 48 deaths and six people have made recoveries in Congo, WHO said. Congo's authorities initially released the updated statistics on Monday.

According to WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier, in Uganda, there have been nine confirmed cases of Ebola and one associated death. However, later, Uganda's health ministry reported another six new confirmed cases of Ebola, taking the total confirmed in the country to 15, as reported by the health ministry on Tuesday. In a statement released by Uganda’s health ministry on their official X account, the six patients tested positive for the disease among contacts of already confirmed patients.

WHO said on Friday that there are 906 suspected cases of the Bundibugyo Ebola virus in DRC, with 223 suspected deaths under investigation.

However, Jean Kaseya, the director-general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in an op-ed in Financial Times on Sunday that more than 1,100 suspected cases are being investigated.

As per Lindmeier, the drop in figures could be explained by the fact that hundreds of suspected cases had been “dismissed.”

"They have been dismissed and have either other diseases or have just had fever and nothing else," Lindmeier told reporters. According to Lindmeier, the numbers will change depending on time as people undergo the test.

The suspected cases refer to anyone who is captured through surveillance or anyone with symptoms in health centres, while the confirmed cases are patients who are found to have Ebola Bundibugyo virus, according to him. The testing process has been difficult in this particular Ebola outbreak since the common tests of Ebola were unable to pick out the Bundibugyo strain for which there is no vaccine yet.

As of May 29, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention's site, there were 116 suspected cases, adding that, "On May 29, the DRC Ministry of Health updated their total suspect case count to dismiss suspected cases that have been dismissed after investigation and suspected deaths that are pending investigation."