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The head of the World Health Organization arrived in Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, late Thursday to witness efforts against an outbreak of a rare type of Ebola virus, as medical personnel struggle with a lack of equipment, a distrustful population and armed groups in a volatile region.
“To come here is to really show to the community that they’re not alone,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at the airport.
“Pushing orders from my comfortable office in Geneva is easy, but I’m asking my colleagues to work with the community and I am asking communities to protect themselves,” he added.
Medical aid donated by the European Union arrived in Ituri province, the heart of Congo’s Ebola outbreak, on Thursday. The United States announced the same day $80 million in additional aid, bringing its total commitment to more than $112 million.
Health workers with scant supplies have been struggling to contain an outbreak of the Bundibugyo virus, a kind of Ebola that has no approved treatment or vaccine. In some areas, doctors have resorted to wearing expired medical masks while treating suspected patients.
According to WHO, 1,077 suspected cases and 238 suspected deaths have been recorded as of Tuesday,
Dangers faced by health workers have been heightened by anger among residents over the stringent medical protocols for dealing with the bodies of victims, which clash with local burial rites. Residents have launched at least three attacks against health centers.
Tedros said other challenges are also complicating the containment of the outbreak, including the high number of people displaced by armed conflict in the region, and food insecurity.
On Wednesday, he had called for a ceasefire in a region where armed groups have staged violent attacks for decades.
“We cannot build community trust or isolate the sick while bombs are falling,” Tedros said.
Tucked in the northeastern part of Congo close to the Ugandan border, Ituri province has been reeling from attacks by the Allied Democratic Force, a rebel group allied with the Islamic State group, and a coalition of ethnic militias. In early May, the ADF killed at least 40 people and burned several homes in Ituri.
The illness also has been reported in the Congolese provinces of North Kivu and South Kivu, south of Ituri, where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group controls many key cities, including Goma and Bukavu. The rebels have reported two cases.
The region’s main airport in Goma, which doubles as a staging ground for humanitarian efforts into the region, has been closed since January 2025, when M23 seized the city.
The conflict has precipitated one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with at least 7 million people displaced in eastern Congo.
The WHO chief said Thursday he discourages countries from imposing travel bans against nationals of countries affected by the outbreak.
“There are ways to manage workers and to manage cases without having a strong, restricted travel ban and we don’t encourage that as WHO,” Tedros said.
The Trump administration last week announced a temporary ban on the entry of people without U.S. passports, as well as U.S. green-card holders, who have visited Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in the past 21 days. It said Wednesday it plans to send Americans who are exposed to Ebola to a new facility in Kenya instead of flying them to the U.S. Congo’s neighbors, Uganda and Rwanda, recently closed their borders.
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Banchereau contributed from Dakar, Senegal.
