Ebola Outbreak In DRC Remains Public Health Emergency - WHO Chief

Sumaira FH Published February 13, 2020 | 01:40 AM

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 13th February, 2020) The World Health Organization (WHO) head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday that the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continued being a public health emergency of international concern.

Ghebreyesus spoke at a WHO-called international forum on coronavirus, which has now been officially labeled COVID-19, with over 400 scientists attending in person and via internet.

"The Emergency Committee on Ebola has advised that the outbreak in the DRC continues to be a public health emergency of international concern, and I have accepted that advice. As I said yesterday, as long as there is a single case of Ebola in an area as insecure and unstable as the eastern DRC, the potential remains for a much larger epidemic," Ghebreyesus said.

According to the chief, the WHO assesses the risk of Ebola spread as standing at "high" nationally and regionally and "low" globally.

The latest outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease has erupted in the DRC last June. There is still no certified vaccine developed to treat Ebola, but an experimental vaccine, called rVSV-ZEBOV, was tried on almost 12,000 people during the 2015 outbreak in Guinea. The estimated mortality rate of Ebola is roughly 50 percent.