The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, arrived this Saturday at noon in Bunia, capital of the eastern province of Ituri and epicenter of the Ebola epidemic declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

“Tedros arrived today in Bunia, in Ituri, one of the three provinces severely affected by Ebola, caused by the Bundibugyo virus strain,” the WHO office in Africa posted on its X social network account.

There, the head of the WHO plans to visit health facilities and meet with local and provincial authorities and with WHO workers deployed in the field.

Tedros traveled to Kinshasa, the country’s capital, on Friday, where he met with the country’s Prime Minister, Judith Suminwa, and with the United Nations humanitarian team in the DRC.

The areas affected by the virus are immersed in a long conflict between the Congolese Army and rebel groups operating in the area, which is why Tedros called for a ceasefire to facilitate the response to the epidemic.

The African Union (AU) public health agency estimated this Thursday that 246 “suspected deaths” had been registered in the DRC due to the seventeenth Ebola epidemic declared in the country since the virus was first detected in 1976.

The virus also spread to neighboring Uganda, where nine infections have been confirmed, including one death from an imported case of a Congolese national, according to the AU health agency.

The outbreak corresponds to the Bundibugyo strain, whose fatality rate ranges between 30% and 50% and for which there is no authorized vaccine or specific treatment, according to the WHO, which considers the risk of an outbreak in sub-Saharan Africa “high” and “low” globally.

The WHO indicated that the virus probably began circulating in Ituri about two months before the outbreak was declared a “public health emergency of international concern.”

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