WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that the World Health Organization, the UN body which President Donald Trump stopped funding, was late in identifying a deadly outbreak of Ebola. Asked by reporters how the United States would respond to the virus outbreak, Rubio said: &quot;The lead is obviously going to be CDC (the Centers for Disease Control) and the World Health Organization, which was a little late to identify this thing, unfortunately.&quot; Trump in one of his first acts on returning to office last year, set in motion a US withdrawal from the WHO, which he attacked bitterly over its response to Covid. The global pandemic heavily affected his first administration in the months before he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. The WHO has been forced to cut back due to the end of funding by the United States, which had been the most generous contributor with more than $1 billion allocated annually under Biden. Asked to explain why Rubio believed that the WHO was late, another senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it took the UN body 10 days to confirm the Ebola outbreak. &quot;We are now four days into our response; we could have been 14,&quot; the official said. The WHO &quot;failed now numerous times. Obviously, everyone is well familiar with what they did, covering up the Covid-19 pandemic for the Chinese Communist Party,&quot; the official said. The WHO contests US charges that it went too easy on China or allowed it to hide the Covid outbreak, saying that it needs to cooperate with all countries. Trump has drastically slashed US foreign assistance, dismantling the US Agency for International Development, which was the world&#39;s largest governmental aid provider, saying that the United States should more narrowly pursue its own interests. The State Department announced Tuesday that it would fund up to 50 Ebola treatment centers in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Uganda through some $13 million in initial US funding. Rubio said that it was difficult to reach affected areas as they were in a &quot;hard-to-get-to place in a war-torn country, unfortunately.&quot; The State Department, in a statement, said that the United States &quot;has an ironclad commitment to ensuring this response is fully resourced, rapid, and cooperative between key global health and humanitarian partners.&quot; The WHO earlier Tuesday said that it was concerned about the &quot;scale and speed&quot; of the Ebola outbreak that DR Congo authorities say has caused 136 suspected deaths.

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Trump in one of his first acts on returning to office last year set in motion a US withdrawal from the WHO, which he attacked bitterly over its response to Covid.

Rubio says WHO was 'a little late' on identifying Ebola outbreak

KINSHASA: The World Health Organization declared an international health emergency on Sunday over an outbreak of an Ebola strain in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has killed more than 80 and for which there is no vaccine. Fears of further spread grew when a laboratory on Sunday confirmed a case in the major eastern DRC city of Goma, which is controlled by the Rwanda-backed M23 militia. A total of 88 deaths and 336 suspected cases of the highly contagious hemorrhagic fever have so far been reported, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC Africa) said in an update Saturday. &quot;A positive case in Goma has been confirmed by tests carried out by the laboratory. It involves the wife of a man who died of Ebola in Bunia, who travelled to Goma after her husband&#39;s death whilst already infected,&quot; Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director of the Congolese National Institute for Biomedical Research (INRB), told AFP. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed deep disquiet as the reported cases rise. &quot;I determine that the epidemic constitutes a public health emergency of international concern,&quot; Ghebreyesus posted to X, albeit adding that as yet it &quot;does not meet the criteria of pandemic emergency.&quot; As things stand, the Geneva-based WHO has declared its second-highest level of alert &mdash; a pandemic being the highest &mdash; with the global health body warning the scale of the current outbreak remains unclear. &quot;There are significant uncertainties to the true number of infected persons and geographic spread,&quot; the WHO said. Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said it was preparing a &quot;large-scale response,&quot; calling the rapid spread of the outbreak &quot;extremely concerning.&quot; DR Congo&#39;s Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba said the Bundibugyo strain causing the outbreak had &quot;a very high fatality rate, which can reach 50%.&quot; Patient zero&nbsp;The strain &mdash; first identified in 2007 &mdash; has also killed a Congolese national in neighboring Uganda, officials said Saturday. Uganda on Sunday announced the postponement of the Martyrs&#39; Day pilgrimage, an annual Christian festival that normally draws thousands of worshippers from across the border in eastern Congo. Vaccines are only available for the Zaire strain, which was identified in 1976 and has a higher fatality rate of 60-90%. Health officials had confirmed the latest outbreak on Friday in Ituri province in northeastern DRC, bordering Uganda and South Sudan, according to CDC Africa. According to Kamba, patient zero was a nurse who reported to a health facility in Ituri&#39;s provincial capital, Bunia, on April 24, with symptoms suggesting Ebola. Symptoms of the disease include fever, hemorrhaging, and vomiting. Large-scale transport of medical equipment is a challenge in the DRC, a country of more than 100 million people, which is four times the size of France but has a poor communications infrastructure. High risk of spread&nbsp;It is the 17th Ebola outbreak to hit the DRC, and officials warned of a high risk of spread. With the outbreak largely concentrated in difficult-to-access areas, few samples have been lab tested. But the WHO said the high positivity rate of initial samples, the confirmation of cases in two countries, and the increasing reports of suspected cases &quot;all point towards a potentially much larger outbreak than what is currently being detected and reported, with significant local and regional risk of spread.&quot; The previous outbreak of Ebola was last August in the region, with at least 34 people dying before it was declared eradicated in December. The disease, over the past 50 years, has killed around 15,000 people in Africa, despite advances in vaccines and treatment. Nearly 2,300 people died in the deadliest outbreak in the DRC between 2018 and 2020. Ebola, believed to have originated in bats, can cause severe bleeding and organ failure. Outbreaks over the past half-century have seen a mortality rate among those affected of between 25% and 90%, according to WHO The virus spreads from person to person through bodily fluids or exposure to the blood of an infected person, who becomes contagious only once they display symptoms. The incubation period can last up to 21 days.

A total of 88 deaths and 336 suspected cases of the highly contagious hemorrhagic fever have so far been reported; WHO director general expresses deep disquiet as the reported cases rise.

Articles tagged with "Ebola Virus"

Rubio says WHO was 'a little late' on identifying Ebola outbreak

WHO declares international emergency as Ebola outbreak kills more than 80 in DR Congo

Rubio says WHO was 'a little late' on identifying Ebola outbreak