Trending 
World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for talks with President Felix Tshisekedi as the country’s Ebola outbreak continues to worsen.
The DRC declared its 17th Ebola outbreak on May 15. Over the weekend, the WHO warned that the virus was spreading at an “exceptional” pace and called for an urgent scale-up of the health response.
According to the UN agency, the outbreak has recorded 3,874 confirmed cases and 1,751 deaths.
The country’s deadliest Ebola outbreak occurred between 2018 and 2020, when nearly 2,300 people died out of about 3,500 confirmed infections.
Ghebreyesus arrived in Kinshasa on Tuesday and was scheduled to meet Tshisekedi on Wednesday, a WHO spokesperson said, without providing further details.
The WHO chief had previously visited Ituri province in late May, where nearly 90 per cent of confirmed Ebola cases have been reported.
The current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, for which there is currently no approved vaccine or treatment.
The five eastern provinces affected by the outbreak have limited government presence and weak healthcare infrastructure.
WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said the outbreak had expanded beyond the current response capacity, adding that more funding, treatment facilities, field investigation teams, safe burial units and community health workers were urgently needed.
“The outbreak is unfortunately still expanding beyond the capacity of the response,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told reporters in Geneva on Saturday.
“We need more support in terms of finances, but also other resources to scale up all areas of response: treatment capacity, field investigation teams, safe burial teams and community workers.”
Ebola spreads through contact with infected bodily fluids and causes haemorrhagic fever. The disease has claimed more than 15,000 lives across Africa over the past five decades.
On Tuesday, Canadian authorities authorised US pharmaceutical company Moderna to begin clinical trials of a vaccine targeting the Bundibugyo strain. The vaccine, known as rVSV Bundibugyo, is also being developed with Singapore-based Hilleman Laboratories.
The announcement followed the administration of the first dose of another Bundibugyo vaccine candidate, developed by the University of Oxford using the same technology as the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
Researchers are also evaluating potential treatments for the strain, including the antiviral drugs remdesivir and obeldesivir, as well as the monoclonal antibody MBP134.
