HeliosForge Bio-Threat Hub — Cycle W39: How Bundibugyo Ebola Is Changing by Province
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Public W39 dispatch of the HeliosForge Bio-Threat Hub. Fourteen days after the last sealed engine run (W37, 12 September nowcast), this paper accounts for how Bundibugyo virus disease moved province by province through 26 September 2026, names the new South Sudan–border health zone Dungu, and scores what the response still has not closed. On 12 September the public European count stood at 7,200 confirmed cases and 3,475 deaths. With data through 26 September it stood at 8,067 confirmed and 3,901 dead — 867 more named cases, about 62 a day. Slower than the 85-a-day clip used in W37. Not slow enough to call the outbreak contained. Designated official lock: WHO DON-618 (23 September, 7,890 / 3,799). Operational nowcast: ECDC (26 September, 8,067 / 3,901; isolation 773; follow-up 74.7%; 63 of 167 health zones). Network R is held at 1.50–1.80 (central 1.65). Dungu is a zone sheet inside Haut-Uélé, not an eighth provincial engine. The map changed shape. Ituri still holds about three-quarters of stock (6,155 / 2,834) but is no longer eating the whole increment (+442 in fourteen days). North Kivu added 342 cases in the same fortnight — its entire W37 four-week allowance — and remains the death engine (local CFR about 59.5%). Haut-Uélé rose to 331 / 139 and now includes Dungu on the South Sudan line, with no public zone line list. Tshopo received most published Ervebo doses (\~4,953 of 6,389) while contact follow-up stayed under 75%. Bas-Uélé is ten cases, not a wave. South Kivu remains silent since 29 May and stays on the set. Sud-Ubangi went from one typed death to two cases and is still an export-and-delay object, not a second Ituri. Forecast scoring under the SCET-2026-0907 law: the 1 June Optimistic September band (about 8,100–10,400 cases and 3,300–4,100 deaths) contains today’s count; the 1 June Base path of millions was the no-acceleration counterfactual that tools at the origin avoided. W37’s 85-a-day clock broke (867 added in two weeks, not \~1,400). The Optimized burial-and-funeral bend still has not opened. Contact follow-up fell from 88% to 74.7%. Isolation fell from 923 to 773. National treatment-centre beds look half empty; Bunia and Butembo do not. Leftover work is the same unpaid list as 14 September, now with a border door: graves, contacts, beds in North Kivu, and a machine that can serve Dungu. Paper ID: SCET-2026-0928.
Author: Nunn, Shannon Newton
Language: English
Subfield: Infectious Diseases
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7214992018