GENEVA, August 5. /TASS/. The number of new Ebola virus cases in separate areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo doubled over the past week, which indicates that the disease is spreading faster than efforts to contain it, the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

"The outbreak is spreading faster than our scale up of the response, with new cases doubling in some hotspots over the past week alone," he wrote on the X social network following his visit to DR Congo capital Kinshasa.

In his words, during his meetings with healthcare officials and humanitarian organizations, the sides agreed that the effort to contain Ebola needs to be scaled up "urgently and massively." This includes broader access to medical aid, better epidemiological surveillance, protection of medical workers and organizing safe burials.

Ghebreyesus emphasized that the trust of local communities and their willingness to engage in epidemiological measures is key to containing the outbreak.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s 17th Ebola outbreak began in the country’s east on May 15. On August 1, the WHO described it as "the largest Ebola outbreak ever reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo." According to the latest data, the case count has exceeded 3,700 people, with the death toll reaching 1,600 people.