United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is scheduled to travel to the epicenter of an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo next week, reported VOA News.
Guterres will first fly to France on Friday to attend the G-7 summit of the world’s major industrialized nations, a conference on African development in Japan. At the G-7 in Biarritz, the UN chief will participate in sessions on biodiversity and oceans, fighting against inequalities and partnership with Africa and the Sahel.
He will then head to Yokohama, Japan, on Aug. 27 to participate in the 7th Tokyo International Conference of African Development and will meet with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Guterres’ last destination will be Congo where he will reach on Aug. 31. In DRC, he will make a visit to an Ebola treatment center and also meet with President Felix Tshisekedi in the capital, Kinshasa, before he returns to New York on Sept. 3.
Guterres’ spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told reporters that the UN chief wants to assess the situation and mobilize additional support for the response.
“In the province of North Kivu, he is scheduled to meet with Ebola survivors and health workers during a visit to an Ebola treatment center,” Dujarric said.
DRC’s ongoing Ebola outbreak is the worst the African nation has witnessed in the last 40 years. According to the World Health Organization, the country has recorded more than 2,800 confirmed cases and at least 1,900 deaths from the virus. The Ebola virus spreads primarily through contact with the blood, body fluids and tissues of infected fruit bats or monkeys.
In July, the World Health Organization declared the Ebola outbreak to be a public health emergency of international concern. The majority of Ebola cases have been concentrated in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, in the country’s northeast, but several cases have emerged in other parts of the country as well.
