[ad_1]
Charities have urged the United Nations to step up its Ebola prevention efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to reach an unprecedented level of emergency response.
Only three crises – Yemen, Syria and Mozambique – are treated as the equivalent of a level three response, triggered when agencies are unable to meet the needs on the ground.
Associations such as Mercy Corps and Oxfam said the same statement should also be made in the DRC, following a recent acceleration of the spread of the Ebola virus.
Nearly 2,000 cases of Ebola have been recorded since the beginning of the epidemic in August. On Monday, 1,287 people died as a result of the disease.
Violence by armed groups and mistrust of the community has seriously undermined efforts to stem the epidemic, forcing health workers to suspend immunization and treatment activities.
Whitney Elmer, National Director of Mercy Corps in the DRC, said declaring the equivalent of a Tier 3 emergency would bring "many benefits" by clarifying agencies' roles, allowing better access to resources and resources. attracting greater attention at the global level.
"There has never been an epidemic of this complexity or size in the DRC," said Elmer, adding that the crisis required a new structure adapted to its size.
The Inter-Agency Standing Committee, the global coordinating body for humanitarian aid, will review the appeal at its meeting on Wednesday. Factors to consider include the size and complexity of an outbreak, as well as the risk of not responding effectively.
A level three emergency, now known as system-wide intensification, does not indicate the severity of the crisis, but is triggered in the event of an imbalance between needs and agencies' ability to cope with it. .
Mike Ryan, Deputy Director General of the World Health Organization's Emergency Preparedness and Response Program, said on Tuesday that progress had been made in the fight against Ebola, including a decrease in disease transmission in health facilities.
But insecurity continued to undermine the response, he added, repeatedly preventing the work of identifying and vaccinating people at risk of Ebola. Since the beginning of the year, there have been 174 attacks against health facilities, three times more than for the period from August to December 2018.
In some areas, health workers fear wearing protective gear, fearing being targeted by armed groups, according to WHO.
Doctors Without Borders warned that he was "extremely worried" about the unpredictability of the new cases.
According to MSF, the vast majority of new confirmed cases – more than 80% – have not been identified as contacts of people with Ebola. "This means that the list of contacts and monitoring are not effective," said the charity in a statement.
Since the beginning of the epidemic, there have been 1,926 confirmed or probable cases of Ebola. One third of the victims are children, which is a higher proportion than in previous outbreaks.
Last week, the UN announced several measures to strengthen its action, including the appointment of a new emergency coordinator, David Gressly.
Tamba Emmanuel Danmbi-saa, head of Oxfam's humanitarian program in the DRC, said the announcement was a step forward. "It shows the importance that is attached to the answer," he said. "It is now essential that this translates into concrete actions that allow us to provide services and access the necessary funds."
"The profile of the response needs to be better defined," he said, adding that more funding was needed for humanitarian work and community engagement, and more work needed to be done to negotiate secure access for charities.
"The approach does not have to be a normal approach … if it involves talking to the militia leaders, we have to do it," he said.
The risk of Ebola spreading in other provinces of eastern Congo and neighboring countries remains very high.
Russell Geekie, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the UN was presenting measures in Goma, as well as in four neighboring countries.
He added that the protracted and prolonged humanitarian crisis in the DRC also required urgent attention. "One-tenth of the world's population in need of humanitarian badistance is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," Geekie said in a statement.
The humanitarian appeal for the DRC, which requires US $ 1.65 billion to help 9 million people this year, is funded at only 16 percent.
Source link
