The World Food Programme has appealed for immediate funding to address hunger as Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo rose to 3,200.

WFP’s acting executive director, Carl Skau, in a statement on Wednesday, warned that deepening hunger had been undermining the response to an Ebola outbreak.

According to Mr Skau, WFP is urgently scaling up food assistance, logistics, telecommunications and air services in eastern DRC, where Ebola has evolved from a localised health emergency into the fastest-spreading outbreak on record.

Declared in eastern DRC on May 15, the Ebola outbreak is the fastest-growing on record. Full-blown Ebola caused by the Bundibugyo virus is marked by severe bleeding and a fatality rate of around 40 per cent.

The UN emergency food agency noted that Ebola is not only a health crisis but also a threat multiplier for communities already facing conflict, displacement and hunger.

It stated that without urgent, flexible support, families may be forced to choose between complying with public health measures and finding food, undermining containment and deepening an already severe humanitarian crisis.

“Ebola feeds on delay, fear and hunger,” Mr Skau said. “Stopping this outbreak requires all hands on deck and communities at the centre. Food assistance is frontline Ebola containment. It helps families stay home, supports safe isolation, builds trust with communities and keeps health teams moving. We know what works; what we need now is the speed and resources to scale it before this outbreak outruns the response.”

This is the largest Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo virus to date, according to the latest update from the World Health Organisation. Authorities said 48 health zones across five provinces in eastern DRC are affected: Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Tshopo and Haut-Uele.

Ituri, the outbreak’s epicentre, remains one of the country’s most severe hunger hotspots, with 1.9 million people facing crisis levels of food insecurity or worse.

More than 2.65 million people in the 48 Ebola-affected health zones face acute food insecurity, including more than 628,000 people in emergency conditions, according to the UN-backed global monitor Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.

(NAN)