Ebola winning in Democratic Republic of Congo, says UN relief chief

Diyar Guldogan

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is spreading at an unprecedented pace and threatening to overwhelm the humanitarian response, the UN’s top humanitarian official warned Friday.

“Ebola is winning in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We cannot let the virus outrun our response.

“The outbreak is the fastest growing on record,” Tom Fletcher, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said in a statement.

The epidemic is killing someone every 30 minutes, he added.

The warning came after Fletcher chaired an emergency meeting of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, bringing together leaders of the world’s largest humanitarian organizations. The group agreed to accelerate the international response to the outbreak.

“Today, I am allocating an additional $30.5 million from the UN’s Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). This complements the previous $24 million allocated to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and four neighbouring countries to tackle the outbreak,” Fletcher said.

The UN is also deploying 20 additional staff to frontline operations.

But Fletcher said a much larger and faster response is needed to contain the disease.

Humanitarian agencies also need to expand access to water, sanitation and hygiene services, healthcare and other basic necessities, Fletcher said.

More than 2,000 people have already died, according to the statement, with many more at risk as the outbreak continues to spread.

“This is a wake-up call,” Fletcher said. “We need speed, scale and solidarity before this virus gets even further ahead of us.”

“The world needs to wake up, and show up,” he added.