UN, East Africa boost response as Ebola toll mounts in DR Congo

World agencies and neighbouring countries today hiked their response to an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as the toll from the notorious disease mounted.

A World Health Organization (WHO) emergency panel met in Geneva to determine whether the outbreak was "a public health event of international concern" -- a move that would step up global action.

The death toll rose by two to 25 out of 45 cases, WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic told reporters. Fourteen of the cases have been confirmed in laboratory tests.

Alarm bells sounded yesterday after the outbreak, previously reported in a remote rural area, notched up its first confirmed case in a northwestern city -- the bustling transport hub Mbandaka.

That amounts to bad news for containing and rolling back the haemorrhagic fever virus, experts warned.

"The confirmed case in Mbandaka, a large urban centre located on major national and international river, road and domestic air routes increases the risk of spread within the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to neighbouring countries," the WHO said.

"WHO has therefore revised the assessment of public health risk to very high at the national level and high at the regional level," it said. "At the global level the risk is currently low. As further information becomes available, the risk assessment will be reviewed."