UN health chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus landed on Saturday in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo province, worst-hit by a severe Ebola outbreak, an AFP journalist saw.
The World Health Organization’s director general told reporters in Bunia, capital of Ituri province, that the international community was helping the DRC government cope with the outbreak, but “at the same time, community ownership is important”.
He said that was the reason for his trip: “We are here to discuss with the community, to see how the response is running and if there are challenges to help.”
The highly contagious haemorrhagic fever is already present in three eastern DRC provinces and in neighbouring Uganda, where nine confirmed infections, including one death, have been recorded.
There have been at least 1,077 suspected cases of Ebola in the DRC since the outbreak was declared on May 15, including 246 deaths, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.
The true reach of the outbreak in the DRC, which is thought to have been circulating before it was detected, is likely to be much wider, the WHO has warned.
The vast, unstable central African country—whose impoverished east has been plagued by three decades of conflict—has limited capacity to conduct laboratory tests to confirm cases.
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Conflict and Ebola
Uganda closed its border with the DRC this week and ordered a 21-day quarantine for anyone arriving from that country.
On Friday, the WHO announced that a patient had recovered on Wednesday, left the hospital and was discharged into the community after two negative tests.
WHO’s Anais Legand told reporters in Geneva it marked the “first” among patients who had been confirmed Ebola carriers in the current outbreak.
Ebola, which is passed on through close contact and bodily fluids, has killed more than 15,000 people in Africa over the past 50 years.
