Kinshasa : More than 2,500 people have been killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola outbreak, which is spreading rapidly across an expanding area, the United Nations announced on Friday.
Julien Harneis, Senior United Nations Ebola Coordinator, noted that the epidemic is spreading across an area larger than France and is expanding faster than response efforts can keep pace with. He added that the outbreak is affecting an area that has experienced three decades of conflict and faces significant humanitarian needs.
Harneis called for more aid, noting that funding for the outbreak response could run out within weeks.
He noted that around 160 healthcare workers had fallen ill with Ebola, 43 of whom had died, adding that healthcare and response teams face additional challenges, with some coming under attack while carrying out their duties.
Harneis added that more than 260 attacks had targeted healthcare workers over the past six months, killing eight. He noted that declining aid in recent years has affected the ability of humanitarian organisations to respond to the crisis.
Congo’s 17th Ebola epidemic became the biggest in the country’s history in terms of the number of cases in late July, surpassing the 2018-2020 outbreak.
