GENEVA, May 18 (Xinhua) -- The response to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) has been encouraging, and vaccinating should start at the weekend, World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday.
Tedros said he returned from a DRC visit to assess the situation on Monday and spoke to journalists here one day after WHO reported a new case of the Ebola virus had been confirmed in an area of Mbandaka, a city of nearly 1.2 million people in northwestern DRC.
The DRC Health Ministry on Friday announced 11 new confirmed Ebola cases in the northwest of the country.
The total number of Ebola cases in the DRC is now 45, including 10 suspected cases, 21 probable cases and 14 confirmed cases, according to a statement issued by the health ministry late Thursday.
"I think the response is very positive," said Tedros, noting he was particularly pleased to see from partners that "there is a political consensus building" that "what happened in 2014 (in West Africa) should not happen now."
Nine neighboring countries of the DRC have been told they are at high risk of spread and have been supported with equipment and personnel, said WHO.
Dr. Peter Salama, a medical epidemiologist from Australia who leads the Health Emergencies Program at WHO, said vaccinating was to be conducted through "ring vaccination" starting with 150 contacts and moving to 8,000 to 10,000 people in the first phase.
Because of the confirmed cases in Mbandaka, an urban center, "we have to start there," he said and that tracking down some contacts would lead to remote areas only reached by motorcycle.
In terms of funding, Salama said the plan is to come up with 26 million U.S. dollars over three months and there are currently pledges or firm commitment for about nine million dollars, "so we are 17 million dollars short."
"That may sound like a considerable sum of money, but let's remember that the Ebola West Africa outbreak two years cost the international community between three and four billion U.S. dollars. So, this is a relatively small investment if we can stamp out this outbreak now," Salama said.
Tedros explained that thousands of people all around the world have been mobilized to fight this Ebola outbreak and some countries have committed teams and equipment to fight the disease.
Ebola is a highly infectious disease spread through contact with even small amounts of bodily fluid of an infected person. Its early flu-like symptoms are not always easy to detect.
The Ebola epidemic hit Africa between late 2013 and 2016, causing more than 11,000 deaths in nearly 30,000 cases, according to UN statistics.
