EBOLA WARNING: Crisis at MAXIMUM LEVEL, UN warned - Express.co.uk

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Charities are urging authorities to increase prevention work to the highest level of emergency response in the DRC as the disease continues to spread at a rapid rate. More than 1,200 people have died from Ebola in the DRC with almost 2,000 reported cases since the outbreak began in August. Yemen, Syria and Mozambique have all been categorised as level-three response countries, and charities are urging authorities to do the same with the DRC. Whitney Elmer, country director of DRC for Mercy Corps, said that declaring the equivalent of a level-three emergency would bring “manifold benefits” to helping authorities control the Ebola outbreak.

She told the Guardian: “There has never been an epidemic of this complexity or size in the DRC.”

She said the crisis required a new structure in line with the scale of the outbreak.

The global humanitarian coordination body, Inter-Agency Standing Committee will meet on Wednesday to consider increasing the emergency response to the Ebola threat in the DRC.

They will study the scale and complexity of the epidemic and assess the risk of failure in responsiveness to the outbreak.

A level-three emergency is implemented when agency responses do not equate to the severity of the crisis.

Last week, the UN announced measures to increase their responsiveness to the Ebola epidemic, including appointing a new emergency coordinator, David Gressly.

Tamba Emmanuel Danmbi-saa, Oxfam’s humanitarian program manager in the DRC said the announcement was a step in the right direction.

He told the Guardian: “This demonstrates the importance that is being placed on the response. Now having this translated into concrete actions to enable to us to deliver services and access funds as required will be critical. The profile of the response needs to be raised.

Speaking about how to increase responsiveness, he added: “The approach does not have to be a normal approach … if it means engaging with leaders of militias, we need to do that.”

Mr Danmbi-saa also said that more funding needs to be given to humanitarian and community work, and stressed the need to help charities safely access Ebola-stricken region.

The risk of Ebola spreading to other provinces in eastern Congo and to other countries remains very high.

Russell Geekie, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said in a statement: “A tenth of the global caseload of people in need of humanitarian assistance is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”



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