Ebola Outbreak is Worsening Food Insecurity in Eastern Congo

CONGO – The Ebola outbreak in Eastern Congo is worsening food insecurity in a country already battling with one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises.

A long-running conflict 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.

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

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