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WHO press conference : Update on WHO Ebola operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
Efforts to eradicate the deadly Ebola epidemic in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are proving successful but “now we have to kill the virus”, the UN health agency WHO said on Thursday (10 Oct).
In an update to journalists in Geneva, the medic leading the World Health Organization’s campaign against the highly contagious virus said that while he could not say that it was beaten, it had been largely driven away from towns into rural areas.
“It is impossible to say outbreak is over, it’s not,” said Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director, WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme. “It is impossible to predict where the outbreak is going to go next. But I would stand over the fact that we have significantly contained the virus in a much smaller geographic area; now we have to kill the virus.”
In the 14 months since the latest outbreak was declared in DRC – where the virus is endemic – more than 2,100 people have died, including over 160 health workers.
More than 1,000 individuals have also survived the disease and returned home, WHO reported last week.
Crediting cooperation with the DRC authorities as one of the factors responsible for WHO’s relatively upbeat assessment, Dr Ryan explained that the virus has been pushed back into some of the same remote areas where it was first detected in August last year.
He added that their inaccessibility – some communities can only be reached after a five-hour motorbike ride – and the fact that dozens of armed groups operate there, were the main complicating factors.
“Under the leadership of the Government and with our partners, I believe we have really squeezed the virus into a much smaller geographic area as possible,” he said. “Essentially a triangle between Mambasa, Komanda, Beni, Mandima, which is a shared space between North Kivu and Ituri.”
Communities also trusted increasingly highly skilled and hardworking frontline healthworkers, the WHO medic insisted.
This meant that potentially infected carriers were now seeking more timely, professional treatment in greater numbers than before, rather than going to up to four alternative health-providers and increasing the risk of spreading the contagion.
The case fatality within the Ebola Treatment Units is less than a third,” he said. “So while the overall fatality of the outbreak remains at two-thirds or 67 per cent, mortality within the Ebola Treatment Units has dropped significantly.”
Asked about the latest information from Tanzania, where the authorities have denied that the disease had surfaced suspected cases tested negative for the virus, Dr Ryan said that WHO remained committed to providing technical assistance.
“The Government as you’ve seen on many occasions has reiterated the reports that there is no Ebola in Tanzania and that testing was negative,” he said. “Our concerns around that purely to do with the depth of the investigation and the sharing of information with us, so that we could make a full and complete risk assessment. So we continue to work, offer support to them. Obviously, a number of weeks since there was a report
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As world’s water reserves change, countries must prepare for a new reality: WMO
New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
- 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years
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- Water storage on Earth’s land surface has decreased in past decade
- Widespread glacier loss across all regions for fourth consecutive year
- Asia and Africa are regions most affected by water-related disasters
- Water data availability has improved, but gaps remain in hard-hit areas
Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
“All 19 glacier regions around the globe lost ice; in Central Asia, Iceland, the Russian Arctic and western Canada and the United States, it was among the three worst years on record,” said Wayne Jenkinson, WMO’s Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere.
Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
“Some glacier loss is inevitable, but total loss of glaciers is not yet inevitable,” she said, pointing to emissions reductions as central to limiting future losses.
Preparing for moving baselines
The report does not attribute every observed change to climate change alone. WMO says pressure on water resources and natural variability also contribute.
Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
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