WHO's Tedros visits DR Congo as Ebola outbreak accelerates

The head of the World Health Organization visited Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) , on Wednesday, warning that the Ebola outbreak in the east of the country was "spreading faster than our scale-up of the response."

The 17th Ebola outbreak in DRC's history is already the fastest-spreading and the second-most deadly outbreak on record .

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has now visited twice this summer since the public health emergency, centered in the eastern Ituri province, was first declared in mid-March,.

His visit coincided with a health scare in the Maluku municipality in northeastern Kinshasa.  A passenger on a crowded ship died with Ebola-like symptoms and authorities were rushing to isolate it and conduct checks.

DW correspondent Wendy Bashi reported that the boat was mainly transporting timber, but that roughly 200 people were also on board. The  barge had come from Kisangani originally, far to the east in DRC. Bashi reported that the isolation measures were a precaution and that the deceased had not yet been tested for or diagnosed with Ebola.

WHO's Tedros said that he was holding meetings with health and humanitarian partners supporting the Ebola response in the DRC to "discuss the challenges we face." He noted new cases were "doubling in some hotspots over the past week alone."

"We all agree that we must urgently and massively scale up all our efforts across all pillars of the response and by all partners," he wrote in an online post. "That means reaching every affected community despited insecurity and displacement, strengthening coordination under the Government's leadership, ensuring health workers ahve the protection, training and support they need, and accelerating access to care, surveillance, and safe, dignified burials."

He also said it was crucial that communities be "at the center" of the response, saying the outbreak could only be stopped with their "trust, leadership and partnership."