By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON, May 22 (Reuters) – The World Bank has dispatched staff and resources to the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to respond to the Ebola outbreak, and is putting together a financing package to ensure more funding can be made available rapidly, a top bank official said.
Monique Vledder, who heads the World Bank’s global health department, told Reuters that the bank was also very concerned about neighboring states South Sudan and Burundi, which have weak healthcare response systems. Uganda, which has reported two Ebola cases, has a strong public health system but also faced some financing gaps, she added.
Vledder gave no immediate details on the size of the financing package being prepared, but it was clear that more funding would be needed in coming months.
The DRC has an existing $250 million health project with the World Bank that was approved in March 2024 to help the Central African country detect and respond to disease outbreaks and other emergencies. About $200 million of those funds have not been disbursed and remain available, World Bank data show.
The United Nations on Friday released around $60 million from an emergency fund to help contain the outbreak. The United States is also sending in a rapid response team and this week said it would fund some 50 emergency response clinics.
“We are pulling together today and early next week a complete package where we will be drawing from different types of financing mechanisms that will help us to make available more funding in a rapid way,” Vledder said.
She said the World Bank was coordinating with partners at the national, regional and global levels, including the World Health Organization and Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to respond to the outbreak as quickly as possible. The bank’s longstanding engagement in DRC, including local language translators, had helped it rush experts to the two affected provinces immediately, she said. Many supplies had been warehoused in the country.
So far, 82 cases have been confirmed in Congo, with seven confirmed deaths, 177 suspected deaths and almost 750 suspected cases. Two cases have also been confirmed in Uganda. WHO on Sunday declared the outbreak an emergency of international concern. On Friday it raised the risk of a national Ebola outbreak in DRC to “very high.”
Ebola is an often-fatal virus that causes fever, body aches, vomiting and diarrhea. It spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, contaminated materials or people who have died from the disease.
Vledder said there was no vaccine or therapeutic treatment available for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola associated with this outbreak, and its early symptoms were very similar to malaria and typhoid, making it difficult to diagnose. Bundibugyo Ebola virus (BDBV) has a fatality rate of up to 40%.
“Control will really depend on very fast, large-scale public health measures, like case detection, contact tracing, safe and dignified burials, a lot of community engagement,” she said.
The bank was also working with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and others to accelerate efforts to develop a possible vaccine, she said, adding that it would likely take another week to fully assess the severity and impact of the outbreak in DRC.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Aurora Ellis and Sanjeev Miglani)
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