The World Health Organisation (WHO) has released $3.9 million from its contingency fund for emergencies and is establishing a continental incident management support team with the Africa CDC to scale response to the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said on Monday at the Africa CDC ministerial briefing that the DRC national risk was raised to very high due to rapid transmission and the absence of vaccines and therapeutics for the rare Bundibugyo strain.

The WHO is finalising the multi-agency strategic preparedness and response plan, aligning it with national plans for DRC and Uganda as teams expand contact tracing treatment centres, laboratories, community engagement, and ongoing outbreak response efforts

He stated that “So far, 101 cases have been confirmed in DRC with 10 confirmed deaths. In Uganda, five cases and one death have been confirmed, linked to cross-border movement.”

According to him, the WHO assesses regional risk as high and global risk as low but warned bordering countries face high risk and should act immediately.

He said the response was complicated by insecurity in Ituri and North Kivu provinces, where fighting had displaced more than 100,000 people in recent months, describing it as an ongoing humanitarian crisis affecting outbreak control and surveillance efforts.

The WHO boss said that two security incidents at health facilities were reported in the past week, and distrust of outside authorities was hampering community-based interventions.

He said building trust in affected communities had become one of the WHO’s highest priorities to improve outbreak response effectiveness, and community engagement across affected regions in both countries.

He said, “To address lack of countermeasures, the WHO convened interim Medical Countermeasures Network last week and recommended prioritising two monoclonal antibodies for clinical trials.

“The agency is also developing a trial for the antiviral obeldesivir as post-exposure prophylaxis for high-risk contacts in partnership with Africa CDC and the Collaborative Open Research Consortium on filoviruses research.

“Discussions are underway with partners on candidate vaccines in the pipeline.’ 

He said evaluation of vaccine candidates and strengthening regional preparedness against Ebola outbreaks in DRC and Uganda was currently ongoing

Mr Ghebreyesus said he would travel to the Democratic Republic of Congo on 26 May with Chikwe Ihekweazu, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies programme, to directly review ongoing response operations.

He also thanked President Yoweri Museveni for cancelling Uganda’s Martyrs’ Day commemoration, which attracted up to two million people, as a preventive measure against further spread of the outbreak.

“We are facing an extremely serious and difficult outbreak. It will get worse before it gets better.

“But we know this virus, and we know how to stop it. With unity under the leadership of the governments of the DRC and Uganda, and in close partnership with Africa CDC and all partners, we will stop this outbreak,” he said.

According to him, the WHO credited the governments of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda for leading the response and said it remained fully committed to supporting them.

He urged neighbouring countries to strengthen surveillance, infection prevention and control, and readiness at points of entry to contain further spread.

 (NAN)