Kinshasa on Monday closed off its upmarket business district for two weeks and began large-scale disinfection in a bid to root out DR Congo's main suspected source of coronavirus, while Kenya isolated its capital Nairobi and other key cities from the rest of the country.
Access to Gombe, which houses the country's main institutions, banks and foreign embassies as well as upscale homes, was barricaded off to everyone except local residents and key workers, an AFP journalist saw.
"The choice of this district is linked to the fact that it's from Gombe that the virus is spreading little by little to other districts," the health authorities said in a daily statement.
After "massive disinfection of the offices and main buildings in Gombe... other areas will be targeted," it said.
Gombe was put under quarantine from April 6 to 20, with Kinshasa Governor Gentiny Ngobila saying the district "is considered to be the epicentre of the epidemic in the city."
President Uhuru Kenyatta, in a TV address to the nation, stopped short of a full lockdown in these areas but warned: "We must be ready to go even further if necessary."
Bakayako urged his compatriots to take the disease seriously as "a real illness which spreads quickly."