The World Health Organization on Tuesday said the ongoing outbreak of the Ebola virus in Africa is much larger than official figures suggest. The WHO is the UN's health agency.
The current outbreak is concentrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with 20 confirmed cases having been detected in neighboring Uganda. So far, the virus has infected almost 2,000 people and killed over 700, according to official figures. WHO faces funding shortfall amid battle to contain virus
"The scale of the outbreak is at least two to four times the number of cases that we have found," WHO emergencies director Chikwe Ihekweazu said during a media briefing in Geneva. Many of the cases are unrecorded.
Ihekwazu said the WHO received less than half of the $115 million (around €100 million) needed in the first six months to combat the ongoing outbreak.
"This outbreak requires resources that match the scale of the challenges that we are facing. And this is not a burden DRC can be allowed to carry alone," Ihekweazu.
