WHO chief says fast-moving Ebola epidemic is outpacing response efforts

May 25 (Reuters) – The rapidly spreading Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda is outpacing response efforts, the head of the World Health Organization said on Monday, putting the final number of suspicious deaths at 220.

Speaking at the African Union’s online meeting on the epidemic, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the delay in detecting Ebola cases meant that response teams were now “trying to catch up” and the epidemic was likely to get worse before it got better.

Tedros said he would travel to Congo, the epicenter of the outbreak, on Tuesday with Chikwe ‌Ihekweazu, another senior WHO official responsible for dealing with health emergencies.

Earlier on Monday, neighboring Uganda reported two more Ebola cases, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to seven, and Tedros said other countries bordering Congo were at high risk and needed to act immediately.

The World Health Organization has declared the outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola a “public health emergency of international concern.”

Tedros said containing the fast-moving outbreak was complicated by Congo’s Ituri and North Kivu provinces being highly unsafe and there being no approved vaccine for the Bundibugyo virus.

(Reporting by Vincent Mumo Nzilani and Sfundo Parakozov; Editing by Alexander Winning and Gareth Jones)