UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is heading to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to assess the situation and mobilize additional support for the Ebola response.
Guterres will visit Ebola treatment centers and meet with Ebola survivors and health workers in the province of North Kivu during a three-day visit in early September. He’s also expected to meet with Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi in the capital, Kinshasa.
The World Health Organization says the country has recorded more than 2,800 confirmed cases and at least 1,900 deaths from the virus.
In July, the WHO declared the Ebola outbreak to be a public health emergency of international concern.
The majority of cases have been concentrated in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, in the country’s northeast, but cases have emerged in other parts of the country.
At least three cases were also confirmed in June in neighboring Uganda. The people infected with the virus there had traveled from the DRC and had been in contact with a relative who died of Ebola.
