Ebola case counts reach 6,250 in DR Congo outbreak
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has reached 6,250 cases and 3,039 deaths, with health officials utilizing anonymized phone data to track population movements. Meanwhile, health authorities in Pennsylvania are investigating recent child deaths linked to measles.
Why it matters
Tracking population movement via mobile data represents a novel epidemiological strategy for containing infectious disease outbreaks in volatile regions.
Share Copied to clipboard UNMEER, Martine Perret / Flickr cc The latest case counts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are 6,250 cases and 3,039 deaths, as the outbreak continues. Transmission activity is still mainly in North Kivu province.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), researchers have started to use anonymized phone data used to track population movements in an effort to predict where outbreak clusters may occur.
"Population movements have always been a factor in outbreaks, but they are particularly important in the current epidemic," Olivier Le Polain, head of epidemiology and analytics for response at the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, told Reuters.
Population movements have always been a factor in outbreaks, but they are particularly important in the current epidemic.
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