Ebola DRC: In the last 24 hours, 50 people have died of Ebola - Press Conference | United Nations

Press Conference by Julien Harneis, UN Senior Ebola Coordinator, and Carl Skau, Acting Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), on the Ebola response on the ground. They both briefed reporters virtually from Bunia, Democratic Republic of the Congo. “In the last 24 hours, 50 people have died of Ebola in Congo,” Julien Harneis said. He said the number of cases is growing exponentially, doubling every 20 days, and that this growth is far faster than the growth in the response, widening the gap between the two. “So, in support of the government, I'm calling that we step up, across the response, the United Nations, non-governmental organizations, member states,” Harneis told reporters. “We need to massively step up our response, be it in terms of supplies, specialized supplies like personal protective equipment, staff, specialized medical staff, and logistics as well.” He called on member states to keep borders open so that staff can travel into Congo to respond and so that supplies can move in quickly and freely, and so that colleagues can return home when they come out. Harneis said the epidemic is worsening an already difficult humanitarian situation in eastern DRC, with a deteriorating food security situation and medical services degraded by the outbreak. Skau told the briefing the situation requires much greater attention, calling it the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak ever recorded. He said 1,000 people have died in the past two months, compared with eight months for 1,000 deaths during the West Africa outbreak - a fourfold increase in the pace of deaths. “You may think that it's just about treating the identified patients, but now this requires, from all the experience, we have a broader set of tools, and that includes food,” Skau said. He said patients cannot be isolated without also being provided food, health workers cannot work around the clock in dangerous environments unless they are fed, and entire communities under lockdown also need to be fed. Skau said WFP has served some 160,000 hot meals so far and delivered food parcels to some 20,000 affected families who have been closed off. “You cannot force people to choose between hunger and health,” he said. He said some 10 million people - comparable to the population of Sweden, his home country - are acutely food insecure in eastern DRC, with 3 million of those in IPC Phase 4 emergency levels of food insecurity, one step from famine. Skau said the region lacks basic health care, with about a thousand health care centers closed in the past couple of years due to funding shortfalls, and some 400,000 children malnourished. He said cholera has also been spreading in recent months, on top of the Ebola outbreak. Harneis said about 60 per cent of recorded deaths are occurring in the community, which he said is concerning because viral load is highest just after death. He said many of those caring for the dead in the community - daughters, wives, mothers - are young women, driving transmission within communities, and that many children under five are dying of Ebola.


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