Hunger hampers Ebola response as cases top 3,200 in DR Congo
Hunger Hampers Ebola Response as Cases Surge in DR Congo
Qinilo.com – The United Nations emergency food agency issued an urgent appeal for immediate funding on Wednesday, warning that deepening hunger is severely undermining efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). With confirmed cases now exceeding 3,200, the crisis has reached critical proportions, particularly in regions already grappling with food insecurity.
“Ebola feeds on delay, fear and hunger,” emphasized Carl Skau, acting Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP). “Stopping this outbreak requires all hands on deck and communities at the centre.” His statement underscores how nutritional challenges directly impact disease containment strategies.
Outbreak Scale and Severity
Declared in eastern DRC on 15 May, this Ebola outbreak represents the fastest growing epidemic on record. The full-blown Ebola strain caused by the Bundibugyo virus is characterized by severe bleeding symptoms and carries a fatality rate of approximately 40 per cent. According to the latest update from the World Health Organization (WHO), this marks the largest Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus to date.
The geographic scope of the crisis is extensive, with 48 health zones across five provinces in eastern DRC now affected: Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Tshopo and Haut-Uele. Ituri, serving as the outbreak’s epicentre, remains one of the country’s most severe hunger hotspots, with 1.9 million people facing crisis levels of food insecurity or worse.
Broader statistics reveal that more than 2.65 million people in the 48 Ebola-affected health zones face acute food insecurity, including more than 628,000 people in emergency conditions, according to the UN-backed global monitor Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).
Food Assistance as Frontline Defence
“Food assistance is frontline Ebola containment,” Mr. Skau explained. “It helps families stay home, supports safe isolation, builds trust with communities and keeps health teams moving. We know what works. What we need now is the speed and resources to scale it before this outbreak outruns the response.”
The WFP has highlighted that such nutritional interventions serve multiple purposes beyond addressing hunger. These efforts help reduce movement of people searching for food, support safe isolation protocols, lower the risk of harmful coping strategies, and create the social conditions necessary for health actors to operate safely and effectively.
The UN is actively coordinating with authorities through multiple agencies, including its food agency, WHO, and its children’s fund, UNICEF. Since the outbreak began, the UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) has operated 495 flights, transported 3,395 humanitarian responders, and delivered 56 metric tonnes of essential cargo to frontline locations, including newly affected provinces such as Haut-Uele and Tshopo.
On the ground, WFP has delivered more than 160,000 hot meals to patients, contacts, and frontline workers across 17 treatment and isolation centres. Additionally, the agency has provided dry food rations to 23,000 people in North Kivu, South Kivu, and Ituri, including 14,000 people under quarantine receiving monthly food assistance. An additional 36,000 people in Ebola-affected zones have been reached with general food assistance.
Speed and resources remain the primary challenges. Every delay gives Ebola more room to spread, while gaps in logistics, food assistance, and community support risk weakening containment efforts. Compounding these issues, insecurity, access constraints, community unrest, and limited operational capacity in newly affected areas continue to complicate surveillance, supply movements, and response scale-up.
To sustain all operations in DRC for the next six months, WFP requires $293.6 million, which includes funding for emergency logistics and food assistance in Ituri and other affected areas.
For real-time updates, stakeholders can watch the daily noon news briefing at UN Headquarters in New York, where WFP’s Mr. Skau and UN Senior Ebola Coordinator Julien Harneis share the latest developments on response efforts on the ground via videoconference from Bunia, DRC, and answer questions from the press.