More than 4000 people have contracted Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and over 1800 have died since the outbreak was declared in mid-May.
Health experts say the outbreak is the fastest-spreading Ebola epidemic on record.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (ACDCP) have urged greater community engagement to help contain the virus.
The Ebola outbreak has spread to five provinces in the eastern and northeastern parts of the DRC raising fears about the risk of wider transmission. Experts believe the disease started spreading months before the outbreak was declared on May 15. The presence of armed groups in the affected regions coupled with community mistrust, has hampered response efforts. Authorities from the WHO and the ACDCP have appealed for a major scale-up of all aspects of the response.
In a statement the WHO and the ACDCP has called for an urgent scale-up of the community-led Ebola response in the DRC with stronger early detection, contact follow up, access to care, support for frontline health workers and faster delivery of resources to affected communities.
The call followed a joint high-level mission to Uganda and DRC on August 4 and 5, which drew lessons from Uganda’s successful containment of local transmission, assessed operational challenges in Bunia and brought the priorities of communities and frontline responders into high-level discussions with national leaderships in Kinshasa.
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