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UK ambassador urges transparency in Congo’s Ebola fight

Workers carry the coffin of an Ebola victim in DRC - John Wessels/AFP
Workers carry the coffin of an Ebola victim in DRC - John Wessels/AFP

The UK ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo has urged the government of the country to be transparent in its fight against Ebola after a rising tide of corruption allegations.

Emily Maltman made the call earlier this week in a joint statement with her US and Canadian counterparts, Nicolas Simard and Mike Hammer, after the three toured the Equateur Province, the scene of the most recent Ebola outbreak in the country.

The statement comes after months of allegations of corruption in DRC’s health sector.

“Affected communities and medical staff deserve transparent and sustainable support,” Ms Maltman tweeted.

The envoys said they welcomed promises by DRC’s government to investigate so-called Ebola businesses, illegal schemes emerging among local elites that see them profit from the millions of dollars pumped into the Ebola response.

Scams include civil servants renting out cars to health workers at inflated prices and political institutions pressuring aid organisations to hire particular people regardless of qualifications, according to reports.

In March, former health minister Oly Ilunga was jailed for five years after being found guilty of mismanaging £3.4m in Ebola funds.

Ms Maltman said the UK had not ruled out cutting funding to the Ebola fight.

“There are other ways to make leaders more accountable without taking our funding away, but it's something we can do. It will be the last resort on our part because we want to end this epidemic,” Ms Maltman told reporters at Radio France Internationale.

DRC is currently fighting an Ebola outbreak in the country's northern Equateur province, the 11th since  the virus was first discovered in the country in 1976.

The outbreak began just weeks before a long-running outbreak in the North Kivu and Ituri provinces was declared over. The North Kivu outbreak began in 2018 and was the second deadliest Ebola epidemic infecting 3,470 and killing more than 2,200.

In the current outbreak 104 people have been infected and 42 people have died. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says the cases in Equateur are not linked to the North Kivu and Ituri outbreak.

Ms Maltman, together with ambassadors Sinaud and Hammer, said the situation in Equateur could worsen because health workers are unable to access many locations due to especially rough terrain.

There are fears that the disease could spread further up the Congo river and move into the capital, Kinshasa, which has a population of 16 million.

Efforts to control the North Kivu and Ituri outbreak were severely hampered by the insecurity in the region, with fighting by rebel groups and distrust of health workers derailing the response. Some 11 health workers were killed and 83 were injured during the outbreak.

The current Equateur outbreak has been hit by travel restrictions imposed because of Covid-19, which have led to the supply of vaccines and drugs disrupted. DRC has recorded 10,422 cases of the coronavirus with 267 deaths.

Corruption allegations have also surfaced in the response to Covid-19. A government finance officer alleged last month that the health ministry mismanaged a $20m  allocation. Health minister Eteni Longondo denies those claims.

Until last month, DRC faced a triple-whammy of diseases, with the coronavirus joining a 25-month measles outbreak that ended in August. It killed 7,000 children.

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