CIDRAP News: Weekly Ebola cases spike, involve 3 transmission chains
“The number of Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) outbreak for the week ending Dec. 10 substantially increased, with 27 reported, up sharply from the average weekly total of 7 reported during the previous 3 weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in its latest weekly snapshot of the epidemic. The spike in cases underscores earlier WHO warnings that illness numbers could increase again, given suspensions in response operations owing to deadly security incidents that occurred about 2 weeks ago…” (Schnirring, 12/13).

U.N. News: ‘Air bridge’ vaccination operation begins for Ebola-hit communities in DR Congo
“…Most of the new cases identified in the last week were linked to one individual near Beni town who could have infected 17 people. … According to WHO, this same person recovered from Ebola six months ago. It is now investigating whether they were reinfected by someone else — which has never been documented — or suffered a relapse, which has happened before. … To ensure continued care, WHO has mounted a limited daily helicopter ‘air bridge’ operation to the communities still at risk…” (12/13).

VOA: DRC, WHO Roll Out Measles Immunization Campaign
“…[WHO] says there are a quarter million suspected measles cases in the country and all provinces have been affected, making it one of world’s fastest and largest moving epidemics. As VOA Correspondent Mariama Diallo reports, the WHO and DRC government are carrying out an immunization campaign to combat the crisis…” (Diallo, 12/13).

Additional coverage of the DRC Ebola outbreak is available from Borgen Magazine, The Guardian, Health Policy Watch, Reuters, and VOA.