KINSHASA: The head of the World Health Organization has arrived in Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, to support efforts against an outbreak of a rare type of Ebola virus, as medical personnel struggle with a lack of equipment, a distrustful population and armed groups in a volatile region.
“To come here is to really show to the community that they’re not alone,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at the airport late Thursday.
“Pushing orders from my comfortable office in Geneva is easy, but I’m asking my colleagues to work with the community and I am asking communities to protect themselves,” he added. “That thing can be stopped,” he said, referring to the outbreak.
Describing it as a “very complex outbreak”, Tedros said challenges like the high number of people displaced by armed conflict in the region and food insecurity are complicating the containment of the outbreak.
The outbreak has also been particularly difficult to contain because the disease likely spread for weeks before it was first identified in mid-May.
