Friday, 29 March, 2024
HomeWeekly RoundupWHO wants more funds to fight DRC Ebola epidemic

WHO wants more funds to fight DRC Ebola epidemic

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has appealed for an additional $40m so that it can continue fighting the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), says an IoL reprot. The WHO said its Ebola operation in eastern DRC’s conflict-ridden North Kivu and Ituri provinces was on financial life-support, adding that coffers would run dry at the end of February.

Under the Strategic Response Plan, WHO’s financial need for the Ebola response from January to June 2020 is $83m," said the organisation.

Thanks to the generosity of many donors during 2019, it had some carry-over funding that was used to maintain operations through February 2020. "$40m is currently needed to ensure continuity of response and preparedness activities to bring the case incidence to zero, and to continue building strong, resilient health systems.”

WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said failure to support the operation would be "tragic" as good progress had been made in containing the virus. The report says the continued reduction of cases of geographic spread and the declining trend in case incidence observed in the past 21 days was encouraging.

[link url="https://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/who-appeals-for-40m-for-drc-ebola-fight-as-coffers-run-dry-43440955"]Full IoL report[/link]

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