Ebola risk is high inside DR Congo but it’s no pandemic emergency: WHO

In an update on the fast-developing situation in eastern DR Congo, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that beyond the several dozen confirmed cases of infection, there are almost 600 suspected cases of Ebola Bundibugyo virus and 139 suspected deaths.

"We expect those numbers to keep increasing, given the amount of time the virus was circulating before the outbreak was detected," the WHO Director-General told journalists in Geneva.

Uganda reported two confirmed cases of Ebola in Uganda's capital, Kampala, he added.

In the absence of any vaccine or therapeutics for the virus - which Tedros stressed is extremely rare and was last detected in 2007 - WHO teams are already working with community leaders the epicentre province, Ituri, to help prevent wider transmission.

Decades of violence in mineral-rich eastern DR Congo have contributed to chronic vulnerability among the population, including healthcare workers caught up in ongoing insecurity. According to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, there are more than two million people internally displaced in the affected provinces of Ituri and North Kivu, where the provincial capital of Goma remains under the control of rebel militia M23.

"We always have a team in Goma and we always continue to provide us support to the population. And this is what we will continue doing this, during this outbreak…we never left Goma during all the insecurity happening, so we will continue staying to provide the security to the community we serve," stressed WHO's Dr Marie Roseline Belizaire, Regional Emergency Director (ad interim and Incident Manager.

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