As stated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “the 2014 Ebola epidemic is the largest in history, affecting multiple countries in West Africa”. Since the first map series published here in August, an additional 5367 cases and 2294 deaths have occurred, resulting in a total case count of 7492 and a total number of deaths of 3439 for the current outbreak according to the most recent updated published on October, 3rd. These significant changes change the shapes of the cartograms published six weeks ago, not least because the current outbreak exceeds all previous Ebola cases counted since 1977, as the following maps show using the most recent data:
The most recent developments are characterised by minor changes in the geographic patterns (which I already described related to the first map series). As the CDC notes, “a small number of cases in Lagos and Port Harcourt, Nigeria, have been associated with a man from Liberia who traveled to Lagos and died from Ebola, but the virus does not appear to have been widely spread in Nigeria”, and one “case in Senegal is related to a man who traveled there from Guinea”. They also confirmed “the first travel-associated case of Ebola to be diagnosed in the United States” which hardly becomes visible in the cartograms above as the number of other cases on the African continent is far greater.
In the distribution of deaths similar changes can be observed. As in the maps of Ebola cases above, the former hotspots of Ebola in DCR Congo, Uganda, Congo, Gabon, Sudan and South Sudan (as well as the very small number of one case in Cote d’Ivoire and one death in South Africa) are relativised by the current outbreak and the map is now dominated by the current outbreak, with Liberia being the worst affected, followed by Sierra Leone and Guinea:
While the WHO set out a roadmap to stop Ebola transmission in affected countries within 6-9 months and prevent international spread, the crisis is far from over, and further updates to these images will be inevitable.
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