DR Congo Ebola outbreak worsens hunger as aid cuts hit Ituri

UN food chief Carl Skau warned that the Ebola outbreak in eastern DR Congo is intensifying hunger in Ituri. The surge, funding gaps and movement curbs are leaving already conflict-hit families with even less food.The fastest-growing Ebola outbreak ever recorded is deepening hunger in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where conflict and insecurity had already left millions struggling for food, the acting head of the UN World Food Programme has warned.Carl Skau, who visited the hard-hit Ituri province on Wednesday, told AP that the outbreak was a "crisis on top of a crisis". He said more than 5 million Congolese were already facing emergency-level food insecurity, while the long-running conflict in the east had pushed nearly 10 million people into crisis or emergency levels of hunger. According to the WFP, Ituri, the centre of the Ebola outbreak, is among the worst-hit areas, with 1.9 million people needing food assistance.Skau later told a video news conference with UN correspondents: "My number one message is that this situation requires much, much more attention. This is the fastest growing Ebola crisis ever." Since the outbreak was declared on May 15, it took just over two months for 1,000 people to die in eastern Congo. During the 2014-2016 West Africa outbreak, which had been considered the worst in history, it took about eight months to reach that figure.Skau said the surge underlined the urgent need to scale up food supplies, protective equipment, trained staff and funding. He said a lack of money had forced the WFP to cut the number of people it is assisting in Congo from 3 million last year to 1 million this year. UN senior Ebola coordinator Julien Harneis, who travelled with Skau to Ituri, said the USD 2.1 billion humanitarian appeal for Congo was only 45 per cent funded. He added that the separate Ebola response appeal was being revised upward because it had originally covered two provinces and now covered four. Harneis said the outbreak had been especially difficult to contain because the Bundibugyo virus has no approved vaccines or treatments, unlike most of Congo's past Ebola outbreaks. He said a vaccine trial was under way, but getting a vaccine to Congo was still months away. The United Nations is working with the government and community workers to build trust so that people with symptoms seek treatment quickly. If they do, Harneis said, "they have a very good chance of surviving Ebola".Across 48 health zones affected by Ebola, the WFP said more than 2.7 million people were facing acute food insecurity, including 6,28,000 in emergency conditions. "Now with the Ebola crisis, this is getting worse. Markets are impacted, supply routes are impacted and so people are struggling even more to have enough to eat," Skau told AP, adding that malnutrition was rising. The outbreak has so far caused 3,360 confirmed cases, including 1,487 deaths, and Harneis said 50 people had died in the previous 24 hours. Measures brought in to slow the spread, including border closures and limits on movement and large gatherings, have disrupted daily life and business, pushing up food and fuel prices, the WFP said. The agency said it had delivered more than 1,60,000 hot meals to patients, contacts and frontline workers in 17 treatment and isolation centres. In Mongbwalu, a mining town about 69 kilometres from Bunia, residents said Ebola and the restrictions had made it harder for families to feed their children. Kahambu Deborah, a 40-year-old mother of six, said rebel violence had already made it difficult for her to reach her farmland, and Ebola-linked restrictions had added to the problem. "Sometimes, because of the insecurity, we can't even go to our fields, and our children are suffering as a result," she said.Dr Richard Lokudu, director-general of Mongbwalu General Hospital, said health workers were seeing more cases of malnutrition in the area than before the outbreak, "even at the Ebola treatment center". Tourne Kasereka, a monitoring assistant with the WFP, said the agency's food support programme in Mongbwalu had helped to "limit the movement of people seeking the means to survive". Summing up the need in Ituri, Skau said: "The World Food Program needs resources (and) donors to step up so that we can do more, to alleviate the pressures on the people here in Ituri."With PTI Inputs- EndsPublished By: India Today Web Desk Published On: Jul 30, 2026 05:52 IST