To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Answered on
18 June 2018
The total number of confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has remained stable at 38 since 6th June. There are currently 14 probable cases. The number of suspected cases continues to fluctuate as new alerts are flagged and tested for Ebola.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) assesses the risk of a regional outbreak as ‘high’ but continue to consider the risk of a broader international outbreak to be ‘low’. Public Health England (PHE) has assessed the risk of the outbreak to the UK public to be ‘very low to negligible’. PHE continues to monitor the situation closely, assessing daily epidemiological updates and formally re-evaluating the risk on a weekly basis.
HMG has provided significant support to the joint WHO-DRC Government response. DFID has provided £5m in funding for the WHO response plan and three experts from the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team have been deployed to DRC. In addition to this, DFID and the Wellcome Foundation, with pledges of £1 million and £2 million respectively, have joint funded an urgent research response initiative which includes the use of the experimental vaccine.
These interventions are helping to save lives in DRC and mitigating the risk of a wider international outbreak.