CONTACT TRACING
Le Polain said contact tracing was getting better but remained below ideal levels.
“We are now at just over 70 per cent in terms of contacts that are being appropriately traced. That’s a huge improvement from where we were about a week or two ago, but it’s still too low to ensure appropriate control,” he said.
“There’s a lot more that needs to be done across the board: more supplies to ensure that we’ve got safe spaces to isolate patients. Surveillance can scale up, but if you don’t have any space to put your patients safely, it becomes very difficult,” he added.
He said that “compared to where the epidemiology is heading”, the current capacity of 250 isolation beds across the affected provinces would not be enough and needed scaling up “quite rapidly”.
The outbreak has also spread across the border into Uganda, which has recorded 19 confirmed cases, including two deaths.
The African Union’s health agency said on Thursday that the situation in Uganda was “under control”.
