The prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo rejected framing the country’s relations with Washington as solely based around minerals, and offered a frank account of the cause of early Ebola cases remaining undetected.
The relationship is a broad economic partnership spanning infrastructure, energy, and local processing of minerals, not just extraction and export, Judith Suminwa said at Semafor’s The Next 3 Billion event in New York. She also said the US is closely watching the Inga hydropower project on the Congo River, noting that a meeting on it will take place next month in Paris with American participants. The World Bank is committing financial support to the Inga 3 Development Program in the country.
On Ebola, Suminwa said through a translator that cases of the Bundibugyo strain were slow to surface because its malaria-like symptoms “can be interpreted as just a benign disease.” The DRC had reported over 7,000 confirmed cases and 3,600 deaths as of September 20; the Ebola outbreak became the fastest-growing on record in August.
The DRC government has committed $50 million to the response, including $3 million for research, with partners mobilizing hundreds of millions of dollars in support, Suminwa said. She added that more is needed so the health system “can be strengthened so we don’t have to face such outbreaks anymore.”