DR Congo: Efforts ramp up as Ebola outbreak accelerates beyond borders

This article is published in association with United Nations.

The spread of Ebola is accelerating in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) amid continued armed violence, posing a grave and growing risk to the region, UN agencies warned on Friday.

As of 17 June, 896 confirmed cases and 232 deaths had been reported across 31 health zones in the country, with Uganda confirming 19 cases and two deaths, according to the latest updates released on Friday by the World Health Organization (WHO).

To safely deliver lifesaving assistance, WHO’s chief Tedros called for a ceasefire last month amid decades-long clashes between the Congolese authorities and the M23 armed group in eastern DRC, where more than two million forcibly displaced people – including over 320,000 refugees – live and Ebola continues to spread.

Now, the risk is regional, Dr. Allen Maina of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said, noting that eastern DRC flanks an area where trade, family ties and refugee movements link Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and South Sudan.

Disease and armed conflict

As such, UNHCR is reinforcing preparedness in those countries, working with governments, WHO and partners to strengthen surveillance, screening, infection prevention, communication and water, sanitation and hygiene support in refugee-hosting areas and border corridors. 

“We aim to prevent further cross-border transmission without impeding people seeking safety,” he said.

A case in point occurred on 7 June, he said, when UNHCR monitored the arrival of some 2,250 people from Mbau, 20 km from Beni, one of the outbreak’s epicentres, after movements of armed groups had triggered panic and led them to flee to Oicha, North Kivu, an Ebola-affected zone already hosting more than 14,300 displaced people.

Frontline emergency services

More than 115 UN health agency experts have been deployed across affected provinces, with over 110 metric tonnes of emergency supplies delivered to support frontline operations, WHO interim regional emergency director Dr. Marie Roseline Belizaire said from Bunia, DRC.

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Diagnostic and treatment capacities continued to expand, but access constraints continued to limit operations in some high-risk areas, she warned.

“One month after the outbreak had been declared, the situation remained serious and continued to evolve,” she said. “Cases continued to be reported across multiple areas, underscoring the need to sustain and accelerate response efforts.”

Over a million screenings

The Ebola outbreak is unfolding across one of the most active cross-border areas on the continent, where thousands move every day in search of safety, work, healthcare and connection with their families, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). 

“Understanding human mobility patterns was one of our strongest tools for stopping disease spread,” an IOM spokesperson said, announcing that the UN agency has conducted more than one million screenings to date and began scaling up operations in DRC and neighbouring Uganda on Friday.

Screenings are taking place at borders and along key routes and travel corridors across affected and at-risk countries, including support at over 110 points of entry, IOM senior migration health advisor Kit Leung said.

90 per cent death rates among pregnant women

Death rates among pregnant women infected with Ebola had been as high as 90 per cent, and perinatal mortality (the period just before or after birth) had reached 100 per cent in some settings, according to the UN agency for sexual and reproductive health, UNFPA.

“This outbreak was also a maternal health and protection emergency for women and girls,” said UNFPA’s deputy country representative Noemi Dalmonte, speaking from DRC’s capital, Kinshasa.

As part of the broader Ebola response, the agency is focusing on pregnancy, childbirth, gender-based violence and building community trust, deploying 153 midwives in eastern DRC to help maintain safe childbirth, emergency obstetric care and postnatal care, with further deployments planned, she said.

Push for emergency funding

Some UN agencies are calling for urgent funding to help them continue to tackle the Ebola outbreak on the ground:

• UNFPA’s urgent appeal for $17.1 million to sustain lifesaving sexual and reproductive health services in DRC
• As part of an inter-agency effort, UNHCR is seeking $14 million for its Ebola preparedness and response from July to November to help forcibly displaced people and their host communities in DRC and Uganda while reinforcing preparedness in Burundi, Rwanda and South Sudan
• The United Nations in Uganda, together with humanitarian partners, has launched an emergency appeal for $15.8 million to support the country’s national response