Direct Relief and VillageReach Deliver Critical Ebola Aid and PPE to DRC Frontlines

On Friday, a critical Direct Relief shipment of personal protective equipment, including 75,000 N95 respirators, arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo to help protect health workers on the frontlines of the current Ebola outbreak.

The shipment was delivered to Bunia, Ituri province, where the majority of cases have been recorded. The distribution to frontline workers is being coordinated by global health non-profit VillageReach and the National Public Health Institute of DRC's Ministry of Public Health.

VillageReach will train and mobilize 600 community health workers to support contact tracing, diagnostics, and other critical public health efforts needed to contain the spread of the virus.

Another shipment containing 188,000 N95s, part of a major infusion of 3M-donated PPE, is en route to the country. In addition to the PPE that arrived Friday in Bunia, the shipment also contained essential medicines, including antibiotics, deworming treatments, medications for cardiovascular disease and diabetes, gastrointestinal drugs, oral rehydration salts, and water purification supplies.

The shipment arrived the same week as leaders from Africa's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave a sobering presentation about the toll of the current outbreak.

The number of those who have come in contact with the virus is likely exponentially higher than the 894 cases currently reported. Experts said that the number of people who have died, more than 200, is a higher number than at the same point during previous outbreaks.

"If we don't stop the outbreak very soon, it will be worse than what we had in West Africa and eastern D.R.C.," said Jean Kaseya, Africa CDC Director General.

Officials have warned that containment of the virus could take as long as a year if infection rates continue to rise.

In addition to today's medical aid to Village Reach, Direct Relief has supported the response with a series of medical shipments to support the local and regional health system, including:

• $2.5 million in medicine and medical supplies to treat patients, help protect health workers, and limit the spread of the disease. The shipment to Jericho Road's Wellness Clinic in Goma included PPE, antibiotics, diagnostics, supportive care medications, chronic disease medications, and field infrastructure and safety equipment.
• An additional large shipment of diabetes medicine, delivered June 12, to Jericho Road's Wellness Clinic in Goma. The shipment, valued at more than $4 million, contained oral medications for managing Type 2 diabetes and blood sugar.
• Shipments for the Association des Diabetiques du Congo, or ADIC, to protect health staff at their Goma diabetes clinic and their network of healthcare providers in North Kivu and South Kivu, as well as a shipment to Kivu Diabetes Center to support healthcare staff at their clinic in Bukavu, capital of South Kivu province.
• Two shipments of PPE and essential medicine are being arranged for shipment to the International Organization for Migration in South Sudan. No Ebola cases have been confirmed in South Sudan, health authorities consider the country at high risk because of cross-border population movement with affected areas in DRC's Ituri province.