Yesterday WHO published the speech by Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus at the UN Security Council meeting on the Ebola Outbreak in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Excerpt:
I’m pleased to report that all 3 levels of WHO are well-aligned and working in harmony, from the country office to the regional office and headquarters. Most of our response staff come from the DRC Country Office and other duty stations throughout Africa.
Now let me describe some of the barriers we are facing.
First, the security situation. Even when I was in Beni at the beginning of the outbreak, there was an attack just 15 kilometres from the town. Since then there has been an increase in the frequency and intensity of attacks by armed groups in very close vicinity to Beni.
These include a full-scale attack on the DRC armed forces base on 24 August, ambushes on MONUSCO on September 3 and 9, a rocket explosion in the centre of Beni on September 11 and an indiscriminate attack on Beni town just 10 days ago, on September 22.
As a result of the most recent attacks, which killed 21 people, our operations were in lockdown for several days. But when we’re in lockdown, you know Ebola is not. Ebola gets an advantage.
We have taken every possible measure to ensure that WHO staff are kept safe, but as we deploy more staff to the field, the risks increase of an accident, or a kidnapping, or one of our colleagues simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The second significant barrier we are facing is pockets of mistrust within some families.
Community engagement is a critical part of any outbreak response and in general, we have been successful in engaging the community about how to prevent the transmission of Ebola.
But we are now seeing pockets of community mistrust, especially around a village called Ndindi, which is where many of the most recent cases have occurred.
Small but significant numbers of people refuse active follow-up, or refuse to be treated in the Ebola treatment units.
We are working closely with religious leaders, youth and women’s groups and with the families themselves to overcome this obstacle.
Third, as a result of the security situation and the community mistrust, we are now seeing the spread of Ebola into red zones, and into areas bordering Uganda. The red zones are the areas which are inaccessible because they’re occupied by armed groups. This spread is extending the long tail of the outbreak.
Late last week the DRC health ministry reported two cases from Tchomia health zone, which is very near the border with Uganda.
For all of those reasons, last Friday we increased our assessment of the risk of regional spread from high to very high. We are very concerned about the potential for the virus to spread into Uganda, but also into Rwanda, South Sudan and Burundi. We are working very closely with those governments on operational readiness for Ebola.
We still regard the risk of international spread outside Africa as low.
