UK pledges additional £50 million to help contain Ebola outbreak in Congo
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FILE PHOTO: UNICEF staff and airport workers receive an aircraft carrying medical supplies as authorities and aid agencies intensified efforts to contain a new Ebola outbreak at the Bunia National Airport in Bunia, Ituri province, Democratic Republic of C
Sept 1 (Reuters) - Britain said on Tuesday it would provide more than £50 million ($67.56 million) in new funding to support efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where confirmed cases have surpassed 6,000 in the country's largest-ever epidemic.
• Britain allocated up to £20 million to the Ebola response in May, and the latest funding brings its total contribution to £78 million.
• The funding will support disease surveillance, frontline health workers, treatment access, infection control, community outreach and safe burials, Britain's Foreign Office said.
• British public health experts have been deployed in Congo to support the efforts.
• "As the outbreak intensifies, we are accelerating our response to match the pace and scale of the challenge," Britain's Minister for Africa Kirsty McNeill said.
• The epidemic - the second-largest and fastest-spreading on record - was caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus, for which there are no approved vaccines or treatments.
($1 = 0.7401 pounds)
(Reporting by Sumedha Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Jamie Freed)
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