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The World Health Organization said Friday that the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo did not pose an international threat despite the spread of the virus in the neighboring country, Uganda , transported by an infected family.
The decision under surveillance followed the advice of the WHO Emergency Committee, which meets only to review the world's most serious outbreaks.
The head of the United Nations Health Agency, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is in the DRC to examine the response to the Ebola virus, said he had accepted the advice of the committee.
"Although the epidemic does not presently pose a threat to global health, I want to stress that for affected families and communities, this epidemic is truly an emergency," Tedros told reporters.
He also called for more funds to fight the current outbreak of the Ebola virus, which has recorded more than 2,000 cases, including more than 1,400 deaths, since its appearance in eastern DRC in August.
Friday 's emergency committee meeting was motivated by confirmation this week of the death of Ebola in a western region of Uganda' s border DRC.
The WHO Scientific Panel has used the "Public Health Emergency of International Concern" label only four times before.
These include the pandemic H1N1 flu or swine flu of 2009, the spread of poliovirus in 2014, the Ebola outbreak that devastated parts of West Africa from 2014 to 2016 and the outbreak of the Zika virus in 2016.
This is the third time that the WHO expert group is considering, but late, to launch the emergency appeal for this DRC epidemic, concentrated in the troubled provinces of Ituri and North Kivu .
Committee Chair Preben Aavitsland told reporters in Geneva that the current Ebola crisis was "an extraordinary event, with a risk of international spread (but) that the current response would not be strengthened" by a declaration d & # 39; emergency.
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