File photo shows medical workers preparing for the launch of the Ebola vaccination campaign in the Equateur province in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo. (Xinhua/Wang Songyu)
The African Union will convene a donors' conference on December 2 to mobilize resources for implementation of an action plan against Ebola, which so far has killed 2,193 people in DR Congo.
ADDIS ABABA, Nov. 17 (Xinhua) -- The African Union (AU) will be convening an event, dubbed Forum on Ebola on December 2 to solicit resources for implementation of action plan against the epidemic on the African continent.
Called by the Chairperson of the AU Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, the donors' conference or the round-table for Ebola seeks solidarity from AU member states, development partners and other stakeholders globally to mobilize resources used to get Africa the ability of responding to such kind of outbreaks, the AU Commissioner for Social Affairs, Amira Elfadil, told Xinhua.
In this regard, the AU has developed an action plan which requires financial resources amounting to about 50 million U.S. dollars, according to the commissioner.
The 55-member pan-African bloc has been playing a leading role and coordinating efforts in taming the Ebola epidemic which has been causing significant impact on the socio-economic activities of its affected member states.
The World Health Organization in August this year declared the Ebola outbreak in DR Congo as public health emergency of international concern.
A Congolese man was screened for Ebola Virus Disease at the Mpondwe border, Kasese District, Western Uganda on June 18, 2019. (Xinhua/Nicholas Kajoba)
The AU, under its Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), has been taking various steps and measures to build the capacity of the institution for interventions in dealing with responses to the outbreaks of epidemic on the continent.
Africa CDC, which has been supporting response efforts in DR Congo since August 2018, presently operates with about 60 experts who were deployed in the field, the commissioner said.
The AU calls on its partners from UN agencies and countries outside Africa to participate in the donors' conference and contribute share to the efforts being made in the fight against Ebola and also capacity building in dealing with such outbreaks on the continent, according to the AU Commissioner.
The call came after the Africa CDC released its latest periodic report on Friday on the status of the Ebola virus outbreak in DR Congo, which showed the total number of people who died due to the infectious disease had climbed to 2,193.■
