Ebola outbreak could last a year: Red Cross

Staff members prepare meals for people under quarantine in Goma, the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The deadly Ebola outbreak in the DR Congo has yet to peak and could take a year to contain, the Red Cross said this week, amid mounting warnings of dangerous gaps in tackling the virus.

G7 leaders meeting in Evian, France, called on Tuesday for a "strong and coordinated response" to contain the outbreak, which has killed nearly 200 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.

While efforts to rein in the outbreak are scaling up, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on Tuesday joined a growing chorus of warnings over the swelling scale of the crisis in DR Congo especially.

"The peak is, I think, not beyond us, but in front of us," Bruno Michon, the IFRC's operations manager for the outbreak, told reporters in Geneva.