Potential spread of Ebola warrants ‘serious concern,’ WHO chief says | CNN

The head of the World Health Organization said Tuesday the scale and speed of the deadly Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda “warrants serious concern,” as healthcare workers struggle to reach hundreds of thousands of people displaced by conflict in hard-to-reach in parts of the region. WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that more than 130 deaths are thought to be linked to the outbreak, with more than 500 suspected cases. Tedros declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on Saturday, the first time a WHO chief has done so before convening an emergency committee. In an address to members of the World Health Assembly in Geneva on Tuesday, Tedros pointed to worrying factors that he said mean the outbreak has the potential to spread further and cause more deaths. Cases have been reported in urban areas including Kampala, the city of Goma in the DRC and Bunia, “which is a big city,” he said. There are also signs of healthcare-associated transmission of the virus, after deaths were reported among health workers, he said. Furthermore, Tedros said that insecurity due to conflict in the remote DRC p