The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) have called for an urgent scale-up of the community-led Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), with stronger early detection, contact follow up, access to care, support for frontline health workers and faster delivery of resources to affected communities. 

The call followed a joint high-level mission to Uganda and DRC on 4 and 5 August, which drew lessons from Uganda’s successful containment of local transmission, assessed operational challenges in Bunia and brought the priorities of communities and frontline responders into high-level discussions with national leaderships in Kinshasa. The mission was led by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, H.E. Dr Jean Kaseya, Director-General of Africa CDC, and Dr Mohamed Janabi, WHO Regional Director for Africa.