The WHO Emergency Committee met in Geneva on Wednesday, where Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed to reporters that the virus remains a public health emergency of international concern, but not a pandemic emergency. Aljazeera reported.
The WHO assess the risk of the epidemic as high at the national and regional levels and low at the global level,” Tedros said.
Previous figures reported by DRC officials were an estimated 131 deaths from 513 suspected cases. The outbreak has arisen just five months after the DRC declared its previous epidemic over.
WHO emergencies chief Chikwe Ihekweazu said at the same news conference that the organisation’s “absolute priority now is to identify all the existing chains of transmission”.
“That will then enable us to really define the scale of the outbreak and be able to provide care,” Ihekweazu said.
Tedros first declared the emergency on Sunday and said he had done so without consulting other experts due to the urgency of the situation.
Health authorities say the outbreak is being fuelled by the Bundibugyo strain, a type of Ebola virus for which no vaccine or treatment exists.
