GENEVA: The World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday that the Ebola virus death toll in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has risen to 1,965 and the outbreak continues at a “substantial but stable transmission intensity” for the past 10 weeks.

Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, Dr. Mike Ryan, said at a UN briefing here that since mid-June, some 80 new confirmed cases a week have been observed.

“Cases over the last two to three weeks have started to reduce. And we hope this trend will continue,” said Ryan while noting that WHO has over 670 staff on the frontline to fight the disease.

He said, “We believe we’re making progress in some areas. We believe that we have the vaccines and the effective therapeutics now that can really change the direction of this outbreak.”

(Agencies)