3 April 2020 - While the Democratic Republic of Congo has not recorded any new cases of Ebola since 3 March 2020, the country is now preparing to face the threat of Covid-19. At the end of March, the country had 81 confirmed cases. The overcrowding among the more than 13 million people who populate the capital, Kinshasa, a hotbed of contamination, raises fears of a new health and humanitarian crisis for the entire country. Indeed, in addition to the cases observed in Kinshasa, now the epicentre of the epidemic, one case has already been confirmed in Goma in North Kivu and two in Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province.
ACTED RDC
15.6 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. ACTED supports them with emergency relief operations in the sectors of food security, shelter, water, hygiene and sanitation, logistics and protection, while proposing a multi-sectoral response for refugees in the East and North of the country. But today, these activities are likely to be hampered by the pandemic.
ACTED RDC
In order to guarantee the continuation of activities, but also to prevent the spread of the virus, ACTED DRC is taking measures to adapt its programmes. In particular, we are ensuring the integration of more awareness raising activities, as part of a prevention strategy and support to the care of affected people, to protect beneficiaries and intervention teams. ACTED is actively working on the development of projects to improve access to water, hygiene and sanitation and to strengthen prevention activities that promote community involvement. ACTED is also mobilized to support the most vulnerable, to help them cope with the socio-economic consequences of this pandemic.