Washington, May 28 (IANS) The United States has mobilised more than $112 million in bilateral foreign assistance in less than two weeks to combat the fast-spreading Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda, the State Department said on Thursday.

The announcement came as US health officials warned that the outbreak remained “rapidly evolving and fluid”, while insisting that the current risk to the United States remained low.

The State Department said it had finalised plans to allocate an additional $80 million in bilateral assistance to strengthen the response on the ground.

“With this new $80 million commitment, the Department has mobilised more than $112 million in bilateral foreign assistance for the Ebola response in less than two weeks,” the statement said.

The funding will support procurement and delivery of personal protective equipment (PPE), border screening, surveillance, contact tracing and diagnostic supplies in affected regions.

The Department said UNICEF and the World Food Programme would expand procurement and distribution of PPE for healthcare workers in high-risk areas.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) will strengthen health screening at airports and key border crossings while also expanding public awareness campaigns.

Interchurch Medical Assistance (IMA) World Health, World Vision and UNICEF will expand contact tracing efforts and community surveillance operations to identify people exposed to Ebola.

FHI 360 will procure and distribute test kits and improve transportation of samples for laboratory testing.

In addition to the bilateral aid, the State Department said it had committed another $50 million through the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) to establish up to 50 Ebola response clinics in affected areas.

The Department also said it was providing $300 million through OCHA pooled funds to the DRC and Uganda for broader humanitarian assistance.

State Department-backed responders have already been deployed to dozens of health facilities in Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu provinces in eastern Congo.

Earlier, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it was intensifying support operations in both countries.

CDC Ebola Response Incident Manager Dr Satish Pillai said the agency had deployed “20 trained disease detectives to the outbreak zone” and was training “50 community healthcare workers to strengthen local capacity for early reporting”.

“In Uganda, 23 CDC-trained field epidemiologists are supporting response operations,” Pillai said during a media briefing.

He said the CDC was also preparing to deploy seven additional viral haemorrhagic fever experts to the region.

Pillai stressed that Ebola was not spread through casual contact.

“You cannot get Ebola from passing someone in an airport, sitting near someone briefly, or through other casual contact,” he said.

“Currently, the risk to the United States remains low because Ebola is spread through direct contact with body fluids and because the United States has a strong public health monitoring, infection control and healthcare preparedness system in place,” he added.

The State Department has also created a dedicated Ebola travel advisory page to provide updated information for Americans travelling abroad.

The latest outbreak involves the Bundibugyo strain of the Ebola virus, a less common species that previously caused outbreaks in Uganda and eastern Congo.

US officials said early testing challenges and difficult transport conditions delayed confirmation of the outbreak in the DRC.

The DRC has faced repeated Ebola outbreaks over the past two decades because of weak healthcare infrastructure, armed conflict and population displacement in eastern regions.

Uganda has also experienced several Ebola outbreaks in recent years, prompting regional health authorities to maintain surveillance systems along porous borders.

–IANS

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