Ebola worsening food insecurity in eastern Congo, UN agency chief warns

The Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo is worsening food insecurity in a country already battling with one of the world's largest humanitarian crises, the head of the U.N. food agency said Wednesday.

Speaking during a visit to Ituri province, Carl Skau, acting executive director of the World Food Program, described the outbreak as a “crisis on top of a crisis”.

"It was already catastrophic when it comes to food and security. Some five million people are in emergency levels of food insecurity and there are also pockets of disaster level food insecurity. Now with the Ebola crisis, this is getting worse,” he said.

He said the effects Ebola has had on markets and supply routes has left people struggling even more with hunger.

A long-running conflict in eastern Congo has driven nearly 10 million people into crisis or emergency levels of hunger, with Ituri province — the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak — among the most affected with 1.9 million of them, according to the WFP.

Across some 48 health zones affected with Ebola, more than 2.7 million people face acute food insecurity, including 628,000 in emergency conditions, it added.

The U.N. food agency said it has so far delivered more than 160,000 hot meals to patients, contacts and front line workers in 17 treatment and isolation centers.

A critical aspect of that response is getting food to those in need, Skau said, warning that otherwise people "will continue to be more concerned about what to eat tomorrow than to follow the guidance that they are provided in terms of the Ebola crisis."

The ongoing Ebola outbreak, considered the fastest in history, has recorded 3,360 confirmed cases, including 1,487 deaths since it was declared on May 15.

Officials have warned that it continues to spread faster than health officials can track despite an expanding response.