The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has warned that the fight against the Ebola outbreak is being hampered by inadequate funding, insecurity and weak disease surveillance, with an estimated $1.4 billion now required to contain the crisis.
Speaking at the African Union Extraordinary Summit in Accra on Tuesday, Director General Dr Jean Kaseya said the response has become more difficult as violence in affected parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) continues to disrupt the work of health teams.
“If we don’t have this money, we will not stop this outbreak,” he said.
Dr Kaseya explained that attacks on frontline workers and the displacement of more than 1.15 million people have complicated efforts to control the spread of the virus.
He also raised concerns over shortcomings in contact tracing, describing it as one of the biggest obstacles to ending the outbreak. Although there are 2,443 confirmed cases, he said health authorities have identified only about 10,000 contacts, with 8,500 currently under monitoring, far below the more than 97,000 contacts required for effective surveillance.
According to him, the limited tracing capacity has allowed the virus to spread within communities, where more than 70% of new infections and over 60% of deaths are being recorded.
Dr Kaseya revealed that the financial requirement for the Ebola response has risen sharply from $518 million, discussed with African leaders and partners in June, to the current $1.4 billion, reflecting the worsening scale of the emergency.
His remarks were delivered at the AU summit, which is focused on strengthening Africa’s health systems, expanding universal health coverage and improving the continent’s capacity to respond to disease
