“Ebola feeds on delay, fear and hunger“said Carl Skau, Acting Executive Director of the World Food Program (WFP). “Stopping this outbreak requires all hands on deck and communities at the center.”
The Ebola outbreak, declared in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo on May 15, is the fastest growing ever recorded. Full-blown Ebola caused by the Bundibugyo virus is characterized by severe bleeding and a mortality rate of around 40 percent.
What you need to know
- This is the largest Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus to date, according to the latest update from the World Health Organization (WHO).
- 48 health zones in five provinces in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are affected: Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Tshopo and Alto Uele.
- Ituri, the epicenter of the outbreak, remains one of the country’s most severe hunger hotspots, with 1.9 million people facing critical levels of food insecurity or worse.
- More than 2.65 million people in the 48 Ebola-affected health zones face acute food insecurity, including more than 628,000 people in emergency conditions, according to the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
“Food is the first line of containment of Ebola”
The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) issued a stark warning that food assistance and logistics are critical to containing the outbreak.
“Food assistance is the first line of containment of Ebola,” said Skau. “It helps families stay home, supports safe isolation, builds trust in communities and keeps health teams moving. We know what works. What we need now is the speed and resources to scale it up before this outbreak outpaces the response..”
Such efforts also help reduce the movement of people in search of food, support safe isolation, reduce the risk of harmful coping strategies, and create the social conditions for health actors to operate safely and effectively, the agency said.
What is the UN doing?
The UN is actively helping authorities respond to the outbreak, including through its food agency, WHO, and its children’s fund, UNICEF.
Below are some of WFP’s efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo:
- Since the start of the outbreak, the agency’s UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) has operated 495 flights, transported 3,395 humanitarian responders and delivered 56 metric tons of essential cargo to frontline locations, including recently affected provinces such as Haut-Uele and Tshopo.
- WFP has delivered more than 160,000 hot meals to patients, contacts and frontline workers in 17 treatment and isolation centres.
- WFP has also provided dry food rations to 23,000 people in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri, including 14,000 people in quarantine, with monthly food assistance.
- Another 36,000 people in Ebola-affected areas have been reached with general food assistance
Challenges ahead
Speed and resources are the main challenges, with each delay giving Ebola more room to spread, while gaps in logistics, food assistance and community support risk weakening containment efforts, according to the WFP.
At the same time, insecurity, access limitations, community unrest and limited operational capacity in newly affected areas continue to complicate surveillance, supply movements and scale-up of the response.
To sustain all operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo over the next six months, WFP needs $293.6 million, including funding for emergency logistics and food assistance in Ituri and other affected areas.
Learn more about the UN response to Ebola here.
watch now
Watch the daily midday briefing at UN Headquarters in New York, where WFP’s Mr Skau and UN Chief Ebola Coordinator Julien Harneis share the latest updates on response efforts on the ground via video conference from Bunia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and answer questions from the press:
