Ebola risk is high inside DR Congo but it’s no pandemic emergency: WHO

Key points

• In an update on the fast-developing situation in eastern DRC, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that beyond the several dozen confirmed cases of infection, there are almost 600 suspected cases of Ebola Bundibugyo virus and 139 suspected deaths.
• “We expect those numbers to keep increasing, given the amount of time the virus was circulating before the outbreak was detected,” the WHO Director-General told journalists in Geneva.
• Tweet URL Uganda reported two confirmed cases of Ebola in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, he added.
• In the absence of any vaccine or therapeutics for the virus - which Tedros stressed is extremely rare and was last detected in 2007 - WHO teams are already working with community leaders in the epicentre province, Ituri, to help prevent wider transmission.
• Decades of violence in mineral-rich eastern DR Congo have contributed to chronic vulnerability among the population, including healthcare workers caught up in...