DR Congo situation ‘far from under control’: WHO

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is moving faster than any previous epidemic of the disease and risks spreading to more countries, the head of the World Health Organization warned yesterday.

“We must be frank: the epidemic is far from being under control,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told an emergency meeting on the outbreak. “It had a big head start, and we are still playing catch-up.”

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His comment came after the DRC on Monday said the outbreak had killed more than 2,300 people out of nearly 5,000 cases, making it the deadliest in the country’s history.

Declared on May 15, the DRC’s 17th Ebola outbreak is thought to have already been spreading for several weeks by that point. It has hit regions in the north and east where the presence of the state is weak, health infrastructure is largely lacking and myriad armed groups have roamed for decades.

Yesterday marked the second meeting of the WHO emergency committee since it declared on May 17 the outbreak a so-called Public Health Emergency of International Concern -- its second-highest alert level.

It remained unclear when the committee would release its recommendations. Currently, the United Nations health agency assesses the public health risk level at “very high” at the national level in the DRC, “high” for Uganda and other bordering nations, and “low” for the rest of Africa and the world.