The United States on Wednesday announced an additional $267 million in funding to support the fight against the ongoing Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The US State Department said in a statement that Washington remains the largest donor to the current outbreak response.
“To date, the United States government has provided $887 million in direct health and humanitarian assistance to combat the Ebola outbreak,” the department said.
The aid was announced on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. The statement added that the move is also aimed at calling on capable nations to increase burden sharing to meet the urgency of the moment.
Outgoing UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last month issued an appeal to raise an additional $1.1 billion against the epidemic, which continues to spread to new parts of the DRC, according to Doctors Without Borders.
The Ebola outbreak has killed more than 3,600 people and infected 7,500 since mid May, according to Congolese public health officials, making it the DRC’s worst recorded epidemic of the disease.
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