Spatial variability in the reproduction number of Ebola virus disease, Democratic Republic of the Congo, January-September 2019

The ongoing Ebola virus disease epidemic (August 2018─October 2019) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has been exacerbated by deliberate attacks on healthcare workers despite vaccination efforts. Using a mathematical/statistical modelling framework, we present the quantified effective reproduction number (R _t) at national and regional levels as at 29 September.

The weekly trend in R _t displays fluctuations while our recent national-level R _t falls slightly above 1.0 with substantial uncertainty, which suggests improvements in epidemic control.

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