“The epidemic is spreading widely. It's now covering an area that is bigger than France,” Julien Harneis told a press briefing.

“It is growing faster and wider than the Ebola response,” he said.

Harneis said half of the deaths had occurred in the past 20 days, underscoring the accelerating spread of the outbreak.

The outbreak has recorded more than 5,000 cases since May.

Meanwhile, armed conflict in DRC, which has continued in various forms since 1999, has displaced about 1 million people in the affected area while weakening law enforcement and fragmenting basic services, particularly health care, Harneis said.

Health workers are also facing difficult conditions as they respond to the outbreak.

As many as “160 healthcare workers have fallen ill with Ebola, and 43 of them have died,” Harneis said.

He added that health workers and other frontline personnel had faced attacks, while ambulances had been burned or stoned and health facilities attacked.

Access to affected areas has also emerged as a major challenge, with poor roads making it difficult to move personnel and supplies, Harneis said.

The response has further been hampered by a fragmented health system and limited banking services, which have made it difficult to bring in enough funds to pay frontline workers.

Cuts in humanitarian funding over recent years, particularly during the past two years, have reduced the capacity of humanitarian organizations by more than 30%, he said.

To expand the response, Harneis said five government-led integrated operational packages had been launched, including increased community engagement, stronger disease surveillance, expanded safe and dignified burial teams and increased treatment capacity.

The response has so far received $80 million in funding, but the official warned that the money would soon run out.

“We need far greater investment, far greater support in the international community,” Harneis said.

“Every delay in funding and implementation makes this epidemic more deadly, more difficult to stop, and more expensive.”