WHO sounds alarm on DR Congo health crisis

The health crisis is being exacerbated by violence, climate shocks,displacement, poverty and malnutrition, the WHO said, calling for an urgentfunding surge.
"The challenges faced by the people of DRC have reached alarming levels,"said Boureima Hama Sambo, the WHO representative to the nation.
"In many parts of the country, particularly in eastern DRC, civilians aretragically caught in renewed fighting, and hospitals are overwhelmed withinjured people," he told a press briefing in Geneva, via video-link fromKinshasa.
He said the DRC was facing its worst cholera outbreak since 2017, with 50,000suspected cases and 470 deaths recorded in 2023.
It is also battling the largest epidemic of measles since 2019, with close to28,000 cases and 750 deaths so far in 2024.
Furthermore, the still-emerging outbreak of mpox, formerly known asmonkeypox, is on the rise, with nearly 4,000 suspected cases and 271 deathsso far this year.
More than two-thirds of the cases are being reported in children.
"Anthrax and plague have been also affecting the communities in eastern DRCin the last months," Sambo added.
The country has suffered the second-largest displacement crisis in the worldafter Sudan, with close to 10 million people on the move, while poverty andhunger affect a quarter of the population, or 25.4 million people, he said.
"Close to 20 million people require health assistance in 2024," he added, butthe crisis and the response remain "severely underfunded".
- Mpox spreading -
In February, the UN appealed for $2.6 billion to provide humanitarian aid to8.7 million of those in need in the DRC.
"The world should not turn a blind eye to a situation that could have severeknock-on effects for security and health in the region," said Sambo.
Mpox cases are spreading to previously-unaffected areas, including thecapital Kinshasa, with the WHO concerned about the threat of expansion intoneighbouring countries.
The proportion of deaths is rising with the case fatality rate seven percentthis year -- compared to less than 0.2 percent globally.
Mpox was first discovered in humans in 1970 in the DRC, with the spread sincethen mainly limited to certain West and Central African nations.
But in May 2022, mpox infections surged worldwide among men who have sex withmen.
The cases in the DRC are clade I of the virus, which is 10 times morevirulent than the clade II strain which erupted around the world.
But the current outbreak in the DRC includes, for the first time, reportedsexual transmission of clade I mpox.
The UN health agency is trying to better understand the epidemiology indifferent parts of the vast country, reports BSS.