UN warns Ebola outbreak in DR Congo ‘growing exponentially’

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is growing “exponentially,” with more than 2,500 people killed in the past three months, a senior UN coordinator on the disease said Friday.

“The epidemic is spreading widely. It's now covering an area that is bigger than France,” Julien Harneis told a press briefing.

“It is growing faster and wider than the Ebola response,” he said.

Harneis noted that half of those deaths had occurred in the past 20 days.

Harneis said the armed conflict in DRC, which has continued in various forms since 1999, has displaced about 1 million people in the affected area, while weakening law enforcement and fragmenting basic services, particularly health care.

He also described difficult conditions for health workers responding to the outbreak, which has seen over 5,000 cases since May.

As many as “160 healthcare workers have fallen ill with Ebola, and 43 of them have died,” Harneis said.

He added that health workers and other frontline personnel also faced attacks, while ambulances had been burned or stoned and health facilities attacked.

Harneis said access to affected areas was another major challenge, citing poor roads and difficulties moving personnel and supplies.

He said the response was also being hampered by a fragmented health system and limited banking services, which have made it difficult to bring in enough funds to pay frontline workers.

Cuts in humanitarian funding over recent years, particularly during the past two years, have reduced the capacity of humanitarian organizations by more than 30%, he said.

Harneis said five government-led integrated operational packages had been launched to expand the response, including increased community engagement, stronger disease surveillance, expanded safe and dignified burial teams and increased treatment capacity.

The official said the response had so far received $80 million in funding but warned the money would soon run out.

“We need far greater investment, far greater support in the international community,” Harneis said. “Every delay in funding and implementation makes this epidemic more deadly, more difficult to stop, and more expensive.”