Ebola reaches an eighth Congo province as cases pass 9,200 and children under five take the heaviest toll in North Kivu

The map of this outbreak keeps growing, and its youngest victims are dying in the places they went to get well.

Health officials told Reuters that two Ebola cases have been confirmed in North Ubangi, a northern province on the border with the Central African Republic, making it the eighth province touched by the outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain that was announced in mid May. The cases, not yet officially announced by national authorities, followed a series of suspicious deaths in a mining area in the Wapinda health zone, close to the border with Bas Uele. Congo's National Institute of Public Health puts the national count at 9,277 confirmed cases and 4,478 deaths, with 65 new infections and 37 deaths in the last 24 hours reported, a fatality rate of 48.3 percent, 2,486 patients recovered and 924 people in hospital or isolation, as of October 16. Contact tracing has slipped to 78 percent. Ituri remains the epicentre, with about three quarters of all cases, though infections have risen recently in North Kivu.

It is in North Kivu that the outbreak's cruellest pattern has emerged. Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, said almost a quarter of confirmed cases in the province are children under five, and more than half of those are infants. At its treatment centre in Butembo, 24 of the 30 children admitted with Ebola between June and September died, most of them under five. The children's family members did not have Ebola, which makes it highly likely, the group's project coordinator said, that the children were infected inside ordinary health facilities where they were being treated for other illnesses before anyone knew Ebola was there. There is no vaccine and no approved treatment for the Bundibugyo strain.

The money is starting to move. The World Bank has committed 93 million dollars in additional funding for Ebola control across Africa. The outbreak has already crossed borders once: Uganda recorded cases and was declared Ebola free in August, and Kenya has confirmed two cases this month, its first ever, the second a close relative of the first patient. An outbreak that infects children in the clinics meant to heal them, in a region where armed groups control whole territories, is not contained by announcements. It is contained by tracing, isolation and trust, and on the tracing figure the outbreak is currently going backwards.