The UN health chief said the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) which has claimed more than 200 lives can be stopped, as he arrived to oversee the fight against the highly infectious disease, France 24 reported.
World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s plane landed in the capital Kinshasa on Thursday evening. He is set on Friday to travel to Ituri province in the northeastern DRC, the epidemic’s epicenter.
“That thing can be stopped,” Tedros said, adding that the WHO did not support travel bans to combat the outbreak because they “don’t help much”.
“Together, we will overcome this outbreak,” he said earlier, vowing to do “everything in my power to help you”.
The WHO has recorded 10 confirmed and 223 suspected Ebola deaths in the DRC since the outbreak was declared on May 15, out of more than 1,000 confirmed and suspected cases, according to its latest figures up to May 24.
No vaccine or treatment exists for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, which is behind the current outbreak.
But the head of African Union’s health agency said on Thursday that one should be ready by the end of the year.
“What we can tell you for sure, by the end of this year, 2026, Africa CDC will make sure that we have a vaccine and medicine against Bundibugyo,” Jean Kaseya, head of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told reporters in an online briefing.
Neighboring Uganda, which has recorded one death confirmed to be from Ebola and six additional cases, announced it was shutting its border with the DRC with immediate effect.
The administration of US President Donald Trump is working to open a treatment facility for afflicted US citizens in Kenya, instead of facilitating their return for treatment on American soil, as has been done in previous Ebola outbreaks.
A Kenya rights group filed a court petition on Thursday, seeking to halve operations at any such facility, while health officials have warned that such a center could put another burden on Kenya’s stretched health system.
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