CIDRAP News: Ebola hot spot shifts amid urgent call for funds
“Over the last 2 days, the number of people infected in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Ebola outbreak rose by 23, and though cases have tapered off some in the main epicenters, the World Health Organization (WHO) [Thursday] reported a worrying spike in activity in Mabalako, one of the smaller hot spots. In other developments, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, PhD, who just returned from his ninth trip [to] the DRC since the outbreak began, called for bipartisan political cooperation in the DRC to end the outbreak and appealed to the global community for more money to support the response…” (Schnirring, 6/20).

Washington Post: Ebola has spread for nearly a year in Congo. Officials are scrambling to ‘reset’ the response
“…Health officials are confident the outbreak is not spiraling out of control but are worried the holes in that dam are opening up faster than they can plug them. Along the four international borders near the outbreak zone, hundreds of thousands of people move unimpeded from country to country each day using countless footpaths that save them the hassle of immigration authorities and, now, health checkpoints. Although the WHO has repeatedly declined to declare a global health emergency, the countries surrounding Congo are scrambling to find a way to contain the virus. Health workers fear the looming chance that Ebola could spread to the Congolese city of Goma, a provincial capital of more than 1 million where as many as 70,000 people cross the border with Rwanda each day…” (Bearak, 6/20).

Additional coverage of the DRC Ebola outbreak and response is available from CNN, Devex, The Lancet, Pulitzer Center, Reuters, TIME (2), and Xinhua News (2) (3).