Head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will visit the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) next week to analyze the response to the Ebola outbreak, the organization's press service said on Friday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd November, 2018) Head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will visit the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) next week to analyze the response to the Ebola outbreak, the organization's press service said on Friday."The Director-General of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, will undertake a joint visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 05 to 09 November 2018 ... The visit will provide an opportunity for the delegation to take stock of joint efforts in response to the Ebola outbreak in North Kivu," the press service said.
The organization's leadership will meet with DRC officials as well as with UN representatives in the country and humanitarian partners during the visit, the press service added.
WHO said on Thursday that as of October 30, 279 Ebola cases, including 179 fatal ones, had been registered in eight health zones in the DRC province of North Kivu and three health zones in the province of Ituri. The area also suffers from instability due to the ongoing clashes between local militants and government troops.
The Ebola virus is transmitted to humans from wild animals and is estimated by the WHO to have a 50-percent fatality rate. Ebola is named after DRC's Ebola River, near which the virus was discovered by a team of Professor Peter Piot in 1976.
