GENEVA, May 20, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – The World Health Organization chief on
Monday urged different political factions in the Democratic Republic of Congo
to unite in the battle against Ebola, warning that the risk of spread
“remains very high”.
“Ebola does not take sides. It is the enemy of everybody,” WHO Director-
General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the opening of the organisation’s
annual assembly in Geneva.
Nearly 1,200 people have died since last August, when the DRC declared a
10th outbreak of Ebola in the country in 40 years.
Efforts to roll back the outbreak have been hampered by fighting in the
affected regions and attacks on medical teams, as well as locals who view the
international effort at prevention with suspicion.
Tedros said he had met with the DRC’s president and with opposition
leaders “to urge a bipartisan approach to ending this outbreak.”
“Unless we unite to end this outbreak we run the risk it will become more
widespread and more expansive and more aggressive,” he said.
The WHO chief hailed that efforts to rein in the virus, including the
vaccination of more than 120,000 people, have so far succeeded in limiting
the outbreak to the conflict-wracked North Kivu province and neighbouring
Ituri region of the DRC.
But, he warned, “I emphasise ‘so far’. The risk of spread remains very
high.”
Tedros described the outbreak as “one of the most complex health
emergencies any of us have ever faced”, pointing for instance to the dozens
of attacks on health facilities in North Kivu since the start of the year.
“We are not just fighting a virus,” he insisted.
“We’re fighting insecurity. We’re fighting violence. We’re fighting
misinformation… and we’re fighting the politicisation of an outbreak.”
“Every attack gives the virus an advantage.”
The current outbreak is the second deadliest on record, after an epidemic
that killed more than 11,300 people in West Africa in 2014-16.
During his address, Tedros stressed that Ebola is not the only health
crisis facing the global health community, listing recent major cholera
outbreaks in Yemen, diphtheria in the Cox’s Bazaar camps in Bangladesh and
the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria, among others.
He urged WHO’s member states to endorse the organisation’s “ambitious
budget”, stressing the “moral duty to respond urgently and effectively to
outbreaks and other emergencies”, and urging more spending on preventive
measures.
Tedros also announced the appointment of four new so-called goodwill
ambassadors for promoting global health, including Cynthia Germanotta, a
mental health advocate and the mother of superstar Lady Gaga.