Julien Harneis (UN Senior Ebola Coordinator) and Carl Skau (WFP) on the Ebola response on the ground - Press Conference

And with that, I will now turn to our guests who I believe are on the line from Bunia. Oh, there they are. And as you can see, we have Julian Harnes, the UN senior Ebola coordinator. And next to him, Karl Skau, the acting executive director of the World Food Program. Mr. Harnes, I think we'll start with you and then turn to Mr. Skau.

Thank you and good afternoon. In the last 24 hours, 50 people have died of Ebola in Congo. And the number of cases is growing exponentially, doubling every 20 days. This is a far faster growth than the growth in our response. And so the gap between the epidemic and our response is widening. Of course, I've also seen some extraordinary work. I've met people in the community like Grace and Christine cooking WFP supplies for patients in the center next to their homes. I've seen Red Cross volunteers in burial teams, nurses and doctors, Congolese from the African continent and from around the world. I've seen the leadership, the prime minister, of the Minister of Health, Roger Kamber, and the incident manager, Professor Steve Ahuka. However, the virus is pitiless, and what we did yesterday does not mean that we are winning on the virus. All the good we have done is not yet enough. So in support of the government, I'm calling that we step up, across the response, be it the United Nations, non-governmental organizations, member states, we need to massively step up our response, be it in terms of supplies, specialized supplies like personal protective equipment, staff, specialized medical staff, logisticians. And we call upon member states to keep the borders open so that our staff can travel in Congo to respond so that we can bring in supplies quickly and freely and then when colleagues come out that they're able to return home. The epidemic is worsening an already difficult humanitarian situation in eastern DRC. We see a worsening of the food security situation, the availability of medical services is being degraded by the epidemic and across the board the challenges are greater. I'm particularly privileged to be here with my friend Carl, leader of the World Food Program, and I'm particularly grateful to the World Food Program for their work. They have their planes, their helicopters, their logistics keep us moving, they're providing hot meals for patients and food rations for people across Eastern DRC. We could not do this without them, thank you.

Thank you, Julian, and let me begin by also recognizing your leadership for which we are deeply grateful, but also really paying tribute and expressing my gratitude for all the workers in this health and humanitarian response who are literally running towards the fighting to try to contain this crisis. I've spent a full day here in Bunya visiting treatment centers, speaking treatment centers where also WFP is delivering food to health workers, to patients, but also to relatives of those who have been isolated. I've had the chance to speak to the authorities, to UN partners, to other NGO partners, and also to the affected population. And my number one message is that this situation requires much, much more attention. And so I welcome this opportunity to speak to all of you. This is the fastest growing Ebola crisis ever, Ebola outbreak ever. To make a comparison, in the past two months, 1,000 people have died. That took eight months for 1,000 people to die in West Africa. So that means that there is a fourfold in terms of the number of death in this short period of time. And I think that itself requires world attention. So like Julian said, when it comes to response to Ebola, we really need a scale up. We need to step up. I think all the strategies, all the lessons are here, all the elements are here in terms of the strategy, but it needs to be done four or five times more and it needs to be done urgently. The second is that we need an all rounded response. You may think that it's just about treating the identified patients, but no, this requires from all the experience we have a broader set of tools and that includes food. We cannot isolate patients unless we provide them also food. We cannot have health workers working around the clock in these dangerous environments. unless they're also being fed. And frankly, we also have whole communities who have been closed off and that we expect to remain in their homes, and they also need to be fed. WFP has served some 160,000 hot meals so far, and we continue to deliver on that. We have delivered food parcels to some 20,000 affected families who have been closed off. And so I think that's an important message here, that food is essential in this response. You cannot force people to choose between hunger and health. But I've also had the chance to sit down and speak to people about their broader sets of concerns, if you will. And what really strikes me, what really strikes me, colleagues, is that people here are exhausted. They are exhausted from years of conflict, from repeated displacement, from crisis after crisis after crisis that has been hitting them. And I think to understand this exhaustion, it's important to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. And let me just point to four layers, if you will. The first one being the conflict and the displacement. I mean, seven million people have been displaced in the eastern DRC, and two million of those in this province of Ituri. And it's not happened to them once. I mean, since 2019, most of the people that I have spoken to have had to move four or five times and been completely uprooted every time. When they have fled, they have been looted. They have no safety. They have no proper shelter. They have no land of their own where they can grow the simplest food. And so what we see also is that many children are drifting around. are turning to child labor, including in these terrible informal mining industry that we all know about. So that's the first set, if you will, of pressure on the people. The second is really around hunger. Some 10 million people, I mean 10 million people, that's the population of Sweden, the country I come from, are acutely food insecure in the eastern DRC. And three million of those are in IPC 4, as you know, emergency level of food insecurity. That is one step away from famine. That means they go to bed every night hungry. They wake up hungry every morning. In the past, the only way for people to survive was to be in camps because those camps were serviced by NGOs and by WFP for food. But we are dramatically cutting that food. We have gone from a year ago assisting some 3 million people here to now assist around one million people. So what you see are desperate people turning out from those camps, trying to find ways to survive, including selling the little belongings they have left, or turning to very small scale farming, putting some beans in the ground on a plot of land that they don't own and they don't know if they will be able to harvest. So that is really the overall food, dramatic food insecurity situation we have. I mean, the health, I'm not a health expert, but I think it's important also to say that this place lacks any kind of basic healthcare. I heard today that some thousand healthcare centers has been closed down in the past couple of years because of lack of funding. And that's in a situation where some 400,000 children are malnourished. And of course, cholera has also been spreading over the past few months. And then on top of that, of course, if I add a fourth layer, is now this Ebola crisis, the fastest growing Ebola outbreak ever on record. So clearly, like Julianne said, we need all hands on deck. And we really need an approach that centers around communities, around the people. We need a scale up of the Ebola response, three, four, five times of what we are doing now. We need, like I said, an all rounded response that also brings in other key components such as food. We need to also at the same time attend to these broader challenges. People need peace. When you speak to them, I was just at an all staff meeting with, we have a couple of hundred staff here and I asked them about the atmosphere, what they want and everyone returned to the message, we need peace, we need security. Our friends need a piece of land so that they can just find a place to stable, live, to begin rebuilding their lives. They want to send their kids to school. But for all of this, we need funding. I mean, the funding that is coming here is far from enough, and we need political attention. So I really thank you listening to us today, and I count on you to try to bring this message to the world. Thank you.

Thanks very much to both of you. I'll now open the floor up for questions. And please, as you ask, let us know to whom you're directing the question. Edie.

Thank you both very much on behalf of the United Nations Correspondents Association for doing this briefing. My name is Edith Lederer from the Associated Press. A couple of follow-up questions. First, how much money do you need for what period of time? Secondly, I recall from the last Ebola outbreak that two of the biggest problems were families trying to hide members who had Ebola, which was one difficulty in trying to trace and stop the outbreak. And secondly, the funeral practices in the DRC, which require close contact with the deceased. Are those still two of the main issues you're facing and what else is causing this spiraling outbreak? Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Edith. The first question is on the funding. We look at the HNRP, the Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan. The current plan is 2.1 billion and is only 45% funded. So in addition to that, there are all the requirements of the Ebola response, which are currently being revised because when the plan was done two months ago, we only covered two provinces, but now that it is grown, now it's spread into both Choppa and Otuele, we need to significantly increase both the amount covered, the geography, but also because of the expected duration of the response. And that will be done in the next two weeks. Now on the deaths, or rather on the spread of the epidemic, we're facing Indeed, the points that you're raising about community trust are absolutely vital. About 60% of the deaths are occurring in the recorded, are in the community. And that is worrying because when you have a death in the community, that means that the person's the viral charge is the highest at the moment just after death. So that means that you've had people in the community who have been cared for by the daughter or the wife or the mother and as a result many of the persons most affected are young women. So you get the transmission within the community. Many children under five are dying because of Ebola. And those 60% of deaths in the community, we would want them to be seeking care. Because if people come into care quickly, when we see the symptoms, they come into care, they have a very good chance of surviving Ebola. And then furthermore, We're working to bring in therapeutics and post-exposition prophylaxis. So there are ways to work on Ebola and for people to survive, but only if they come in quickly. And so that is getting that community trust so that people feel the trust to come in, seek care, will save lives. So there's a huge challenge. where we are working with the government and community workers to engage with the community to resolve that. Thank you.

I mean, I will just be quick. I don't know really what the overall gap or ask is for DRC. What I do know is $76 million is our ask to provide logistics that Julian spoke about, the warehousing, the last mile delivery, the air services, but also the food for this Ebola response. So $75 million. is the ask and that's frankly just peanuts if you look at the bigger scheme of things. What has been interesting so far is that our logistics has been somewhat funded but the food element here has been zero funded for us and I think that speaks to this issue of understanding that if you want to be effective you need to have an all rounded response. It's not only the narrow health response that is needed to be able to contain that and I think you know again speaking to the urgency here It's clear that at the pace that this is now spreading, it has been contained quite locally here for the moment, but there are clear risks, of course, for this epidemic to spread also beyond borders.

Could I ask a quick follow-up? We've heard that there are some early vaccine trials. Are any of those, have you seen Any trials taking place or any indication of early results?

Indeed, there has a trial that has been commenced with a volunteer in the United Kingdom. However, we're many, many months away from seeing an effective vaccine. The Bundibugyo strain of of Ebola is not one for which there is a vaccine available nor are the therapeutics yet available. We're doing trials, currently trials are being conducted for therapeutics and for post-exposition prophylactics. We're closer with the therapeutics but it's many months away before we have vaccines. Even without that.

Okay. Do you have it? Wait. Your audio for a second. What? You want me to call him? All right. Are you getting, are you getting a signal?

Yeah, yeah. Okay. I think we're back.

Yeah. Hold on.

Please go ahead with your next question.

Okay, sorry, if you could just repeat the last few things you said because your mic went out for a second.

Yes, so I was saying that there's transfer therapeutics going on for post-exposure prophylaxis and vaccines. The vaccines are several months away before we see the ability to deploy them in Democratic Republic of Congo, but the important thing is even without that, if you seek care quickly, the quality of care is sufficient to significantly increase your chances of surviving the Ebola virus disease. If people come in late, that's where we see the high case fatality rate. Thank you.

Okay, thanks. Dulce.

Hi, this is Dulce from Pass Blue. I have a couple of questions, one for Carl. The WFP is asking for what, 75 million? Is the relevant State Department office run by Jeremy Lewin, are they mulling over releasing some funds? And regarding the political attention, you know, DRC is the president of the Security Council this month, but the word Ebola has not come up. in the council this month. So I'm just wondering, is there a gap between what's happening in Kinshasa and what's happening in eastern DRC? And well, I guess that's it. So when you say it's contained, it's contained in the DRC and has not spread to neighboring countries. Is that what you're saying? Thanks.

I'll cover the Ebola bear then and send it to Penny. So in terms of the Security Council, I mean obviously the Ebola response is a public health matter. It does occur within the context of armed groups and of violence, but what is the vast majority of the cases are here in and around Bunya and we are in a secure environment here and people can seek care without concerns. So what we're looking at is a public health response in a complicated environment.

Try again. I think it's working. Okay. Hold on. One second. Yeah? Oh, yeah, okay. Can you please repeat? I think we have you now.

Can you hear me?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we can.

Okay, okay. I wasn't trying to put a question. So the last case in Uganda has indeed been released. We're very happy. Obviously, that doesn't mean that we're out of the woods. It's a long order. and much travel back and forth. So we need to continue to be careful. All of the bordering areas, and we need to be doing better measures, or we are doing better measures, but they have essentially been working front in South Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, and very soon in Central African Republic.

Can you hear me as well? No? Maybe I'm speaking, should I speak closer? Do you hear me as well?

Yeah, yeah, we can hear you.

Oh, but just quickly to say we have indeed received funding from the U.S. State Department, and we are in discussions for further contributions, including through the Orchard Fund.

And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and I'll.

Try with a follow up because to say it's a global health crisis, you know, belies what happened with the origin, with the other Ebola case crisis when the U.S. and Samantha Power in the Security Council led a mobilization effort to control the Ebola spread. I guess I don't understand why you would separate out a global health crisis from Security Council acting, especially when you're saying that political attention is needed.

Well, thank you for the comment. I think that would be a question that would be best addressed to the Democratic Republic of Congo, certainly our focus here.

Some of the public health response. Okay. Are there any further questions? If not, I would like once more to thank our guests, Julian Harness and Carl Scout. Thanks very much and good luck on your work in the days ahead. Thanks.

Thank you.