UNITED NATIONS, July 3– The United Nations and its partners continue to support the response to the Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), UN humanitarians said on Thursday.
In Ituri province, health authorities have confirmed at least two Ebola cases in the Kigonze displacement site, which hosts about 15,000 people displaced by conflict in the town of Bunia, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). An Ebola treatment center is currently being established at the displacement site, and a new program providing free health care to displaced people was launched on Thursday. Partners are also scaling up community outreach and disease prevention efforts, including the installation of handwashing stations, said the office. “However, lack of community trust continues to hinder public health interventions. On June 30, local authorities reported that one civilian was killed after protesters set fire to a health facility in Bafwabango village, in Ituri province,” said OCHA.
As of June 30, authorities reported 1,406 confirmed Ebola cases across Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu provinces. Three confirmed cases linked to Ituri have also been identified in the neighboring provinces of Haut-Uele and Tshopo, raising concerns about further spread of the outbreak. Senior UN Ebola Coordinator Julien Harneis arrived in the DRC’s capital, Kinshasa, on Wednesday to officially take up his role, working closely with national authorities, the World Health Organization and partners, OCHA said. He will support the scale-up response, reinforce coordination, address operational challenges, and help ensure that support reaches people who need it as quickly as possible.
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