Start with the two documents, because they are both official and they do not agree.
WHO Disease Outbreak News 613, published July 17 with data as of July 15, reports 2,124 confirmed cases and 828 deaths in the Democratic Republic of the Congo - 2,145 and 830 globally [1].
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, on a page updated today and citing Congolese government data as of July 26, reports 3,262 cases and 1,437 deaths [2].
The gap is 1,138 cases and 609 deaths.
Some of that is time: the WHO figure is eleven days older, and this outbreak has been adding cases fast enough that ECDC records a single-day increment of 62 cases and 32 deaths [2]. Eleven days, though, does not obviously account for a near-doubling of the death toll - and WHO's most recent formal notice, the document that carries its authority, still publishes the lower pair.
Then the statement that reframes both numbers. Chikwe Ihekweazu, who runs WHO's Health Emergencies Programme, has said the scale of the outbreak is 'at least 2-4 times the number of cases we are finding' [3].
Apply his own multiplier to the higher of the two official counts and you get somewhere between 6,500 and 13,000 actual cases.
The rest of the record, from WHO's own notice: a case fatality rate of 39 percent in the DRC. One hundred and nineteen confirmed cases among health workers, including 36 deaths - a fatality rate among the people treating it of 30.3 percent. At least 410 recoveries [1].
This is the Bundibugyo strain, for which there is no approved vaccine and no approved treatment [1], which is why the tools that worked in previous outbreaks are not available here. It was declared a public health emergency of international concern on May 17 and is now the third largest on record [2]. Ituri province holds more than 90 percent of cases and 80 percent of deaths [3].
There is one piece of good news in the file, and today it completed. Uganda recorded 20 cases and two deaths; all patients were discharged, and on July 28 its health ministry declared the country Ebola-free. Health Minister Chris Baryomunsi: 'Today, Uganda is Ebola-free.' Two cautions on that: outlets differ on the date of the last discharge, and on whether the standard 42-day clock ran in full. Uganda is keeping its border with eastern Congo closed [2].
A caution for anyone searching this story: a widely-surfacing article headlined that WHO 'drastically downsizes' the case count carries figures of 321 confirmed and 48 deaths. Those are from early in the outbreak, around May and June. They are not current, and they still rank near the top of search results.
