UK pledges additional £50 million to help contain Ebola outbreak in Congo

Britain said on Tuesday it would provide more than £50 million ($67.56 million) in new funding to support efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where confirmed cases have surpassed 6,000 in the country's largest-ever epidemic.

Britain previously allocated up to £20 million to the Ebola response in May, and the latest funding brings its total contribution to £78 million.

The funding will support disease surveillance, frontline health workers, treatment access, infection control, community outreach and safe burials, Britain's Foreign Office said.

British public health experts have also been deployed in Congo to support the efforts. "As the outbreak intensifies, we are accelerating our response to match the pace and scale of the challenge," Britain's Minister for Africa Kirsty McNeill said.

The epidemic, the second-largest and fastest-spreading on record, was caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus, for which there are no approved vaccines or treatments.