With an outbreak of Ebola continuing in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the United Nations (UN) hosted Monday a high-level meeting that reaffirmed support for their system-wide approach to combating the disease and reaffirmed support for the government-led response.
The disease has been working its way through the DRC for nearly a year. More than 1,650 have died so far and, according to UN estimates, around 12 new cases appear each day. Neighboring provinces and countries are at very high risk. While the outbreak remains confined to the provinces of North Kivu and Ituri, the UN is uncertain how long that will remain the case.
“The Government acknowledges how difficult it has been to get ahead of this outbreak of Ebola in our country,” Bernard Biando Sango, DRC’s Minister for Solidarity and Humanitarian Action, said. “The response is being carried out in a very complex environment, but with support from our friends in the international community, the Congolese are committed to bringing down the number of cases to zero.”
Dr. Oly Ilunga, DRC’s Minister of Health, also took the opportunity to call for an end to attacks on health care personnel. Since January, 198 attacks against the health response have led to dozens injured and seven killed. Armed militias in-country have only complicated the situation.
“We need political support from all parties, and community ownership, for the responders to do their work safely and without interruptions,” Ilunga said. “This is the only way to stop the virus from continuing to spread.”
However, even if attacks were to end, the UN has made it clear that more resources are needed to address the problem adequately.
“Unless we get substantially more financial resources immediately, it will not be possible to end the outbreak,” Mark Lowcock, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said. “Every delay gives the virus an opportunity to spread, which has disastrous consequences. We need to do everything possible now to avoid reaching the scale of the outbreak we saw in West Africa five years ago when more than 10,000 lives were lost before a multi-billion-dollar response brought the cases down to zero.”