CDC to tap $107m in emergency funding for Ebola response in DRC and Uganda

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will tap $107m in emergency funding for Ebola outbreak response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ( DRC ) and Uganda , officials said on Thursday. The continued Ebola outbreak in the DRC comes as Canada, Mexico and the US jointly host the Fifa World Cup , attracting visitors from around the world. The officials said the outbreak, now the third largest on record, required “strong immediate support”, but that the global risk remained low. “Specifically, and consistent with that modeling, we are now already approaching 1,000 confirmed cases across 31 health zones in DRC,” Dr Satish K Pillai, incident manager for the CDC’s Ebola response, said in a briefing with reporters on Thursday, “There are 31 cases in Kampala, Uganda .” Pillai said the CDC had 23 field staff supporting disease investigations and 125 staff members across the DRC and Uganda, and that CDC staff hold twice-weekly calls with the US World Cup host cities. To date, officials said local health authorities had mostly faced illnesses typical of large, Super Bowl-style events, such as heat-related illnesses. An outbreak of Bundibugyo viral disease (BVD) began roughly one month ago along the western border of the DRC and the eastern border of Uganda. BVD is a rare zoonotic species of Ebola, a hemorrhagic fever. The disease killed between 30% and 50% of those infected in recent outbreaks in Congo and Uganda. …