The Ebola epidemic does not meet the criteria for a pandemic emergency, the WHO said on Wednesday, May 20. However, the agency believes that the epidemic risk is “high” at the national and regional levels, and “low” at the global level.
The epidemic risk of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was deemed “high” at the national and regional levels, and “low” at the global level, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday, May 20.
“The WHO assessed the epidemic risk as high at the national and regional levels and low at the global level,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared at a press conference in Geneva following an emergency committee meeting on this Ebola epidemic in eastern DRC.
The epidemic “probably” began a few months ago, according to the emergency committee convened by the WHO on Tuesday. The committee also concluded on Wednesday that the current situation does not currently meet the criteria for a pandemic emergency.
“The current situation and the criteria for a public health emergency of international concern are not met, and we agree that the current situation does not meet the criteria for a pandemic emergency,” said committee chair Lucille Blumberg at a press conference in Geneva, confirming the previous assessment communicated by the WHO.
The scale of the ongoing Ebola epidemic suggests that it has been spreading for some time, the WHO announced. “Given the magnitude of the problem, we believe it probably started a few months ago, but investigations are ongoing and our priority is really to break the transmission chain by implementing contact tracing, isolation, and management of all suspected and confirmed cases,” said Anaïs Legand, a technical expert on viral hemorrhagic fevers at the WHO.
