Ebola threat now ' very high' in DRC

Ajouté : 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is spreading rapidly.

[00:00:06]Previously, WHO assessed the risk as high at the national and regional levels and low at global levels.

[00:00:16]We're now revising our risk assessment to very high at the national level, high at the regional level, and low at global level. My question is what does it mean that the risk is very high at the national level? So, clarification on that, please.

[00:00:32]>> When we do a risk assessment, we answer three questions.

[00:00:35]One, the potential risk for human health.

[00:00:39]Two, risk of an event is spreading.

[00:00:42]Third, is the capacity available.

[00:00:45]And then from there we look what's the likelihood and the consequence. Looking right now what clearly changed from when we did the initial risk assessment is the risk of event spreading has gone from a moderate to high.

[00:01:00]And the risk has gone very high. So, the potential of this virus is spreading rapidly is high, very high. That And that changed the whole dynamic.

[00:01:12]Linked to that is the capacity to respond to this outbreak.

[00:01:17]Uh insufficient control. DG was very clear that the worsening humanitarian situation. So, when you combine these two, the risk shift from high to very high in eastern DRC. And there's the urgent need required in solidarity and in support of that rather than travel restriction and ban. We need humanitarian access. We need flight to go there. We need to stand with the local authority and all the NGOs working there. It's the time for solidarity. So, the slightly change is because of the what we are seeing the epidemiology driven data.

[00:01:53]Uh so, with But if we implement all the containment activity, the contact tracing, the building the trust with the community, expanding the lab. Our representative already indicated what we are doing there. We will be able to this and reduce the risk from very high to high and hopefully moderate, but it requires global solidarity.