The World Health Organization has warned that the Ebola outbreak is outpacing response efforts and countries neighbouring the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are at high risk from the disease.

“We are urgently scaling up operations, but at the moment the epidemic is outpacing us,” said the WHO’s director-general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, as he urged neighbouring countries to take immediate action.

Addressing an online meeting of the African Union about the outbreak, he also announced there had been 220 suspected deaths so far in the current Ebola outbreak and that he would travel to the DRC on Tuesday with Chikwe Ihekweazu, executive director of WHO’s health emergencies programme.

Tedros’s announcement came as attacks by residents on health facilities in Ituri province, the centre of the outbreak, hampered the response.

First on Saturday and again on Sunday, residents of Mongbwalu town in the DRC attacked the Mongbwalu general referral hospital.

Dr Richard Lokodu, medical director of the facility, told Reuters that 18 Ebola patients had fled on Saturday after “unidentified individuals” burned tents, erected by Médecins Sans Frontières, where patients were being isolated.

The hospital came under four waves of attacks on Sunday, he added, by young people mobilised by relatives of a religious leader who died of Ebola. Seven other patients escaped and Congolese police and soldiers had to intervene to restore order.

A suspected patient who was in critical condition with haemorrhaging died in the second attack while trying to flee from his bed.

The perpetrators of the attacks had wanted the bodies of the Ebola victims released for burial, Lokodu added.

In a similar incident, a crowd on Thursday set fire to a treatment centre in Rwampara, near Bunia, after authorities refused to give them the body of a victim they wanted to bury themselves.

The burial of bodies, which can be highly contagious, is handled by authorities for containment of the disease, but some families prefer traditional burials, which involve washing and touching the body. In previous outbreaks that has been proved to be a key driver of the spread of the disease.

Earlier this month, Tedros declared the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern” after more than 300 suspected cases and 88 deaths were reported in the DRC and two deaths in neighbouring Uganda.

On Monday, Uganda announced two more Ebola cases, taking the total number of confirmed cases in the country to seven. The new cases are both Ugandan health workers in a private health facility in the capital, Kampala, the country’s health ministry said in a statement.

The outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo ebolavirus, which has no approved treatment or vaccine.

The hotspots are Rwampara, Mongbwalu, Nyankunde and Bunia areas in the north-east DRC province of Ituri, a commercial and migration hub and a gold-rich region where conflict between militias allied to the Hema and the Lendu ethnic groups, who are fighting over land and the mineral, has killed more than 50,000 people since 1999.

Cases have also been reported in Butembo and rebel-controlled Goma, both in North Kivu province, and Bukavu city, also rebel-held, in South Kivu province.

On Monday, Tedros said containing the outbreak was complicated by Ituri and North Kivu being insecure and the lack of an approved vaccine.

Reuters contributed to this report

Authorities in Texas rescued an infant on Saturday after a vehicle became trapped in floodwaters in Beeville, south of San Antonio.

Video released on Sunday by the Beeville police department showed officers and firefighters surrounding a white car that was partially submerged in fast-moving water. As one first responder approached the car, a distressed man in the vehicle asked: “Can you get my kid?”

The first responder replied, saying: “Yeah give me the baby” and reached through the passenger-side window toward the infant.

As the first responder pulled the infant in the baby carrier from the vehicle, the driver yelled: “Cover him, cover him!” Another responder quickly draped a high-visibility jacket over the baby carrier after he was safely carried to the curb and placed in a grassy area.

According to police, the incident occurred after rapid rainfall overwhelmed a low-water crossing. Authorities said the storm grew so quickly that barricades had not yet been placed near the crossing.

“As the vehicle approached the crossing, the fire chief attempted to wave the driver down to stop them from entering the water, but the driver did not see him in time,” the police department said, adding that nobody was hurt during the rescue.

It went on to caution: “Situations like this are a reminder that flood water is nothing to gamble with. It does not take much moving water to push a vehicle off the roadway, and by the time you realize how dangerous it is, it can already be too late.”

“If barricades are up around a roadway or crossing, please do not drive around them. They are there for a reason. Going around barricades not only puts lives at risk, but it is also a criminal offense,” the police department added.

Police urged drivers to slow down during heavy rainfall, steer clear of flooded roads, and remain especially careful near creek crossings and other areas prone to flooding, saying: “No errand, shortcut, or destination is worth risking your life or your family’s safety.”

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said on Monday her government agreed to allow the Iranian national football team to stay in Mexico during the World Cup, adding that the United States did not want to host the team.

Sheinbaum said football’s governing body Fifa approached her government after the US said it did not want Iran’s squad to stay in the country throughout the tournament, despite Iran playing all three of its group matches there.

“We have no reason to deny them the possibility of staying in Mexico,” Sheinbaum said during her daily press conference.

The US and Israel first launched strikes on Iran on 28 February. The bombing killed thousands of people in Iran before a tenuous ceasefire was agreed in early April amid protracted peace talks on Iran’s closure of the vital straits of Hormuz waterway and the fate of its nuclear ambitions.

The White House and the state department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mehdi Taj, head of Iran’s football federation, said on Saturday the team’s base would be moved from Arizona to the Mexican border city of Tijuana during the tournament.

Taj added that the move would help avoid visa-related complications and that the squad would be able to travel directly to Mexico aboard Iran Air flights. The Iranian team’s participation in the 11 June- 19 July tournament had been in question since the US and Israel attacked Iran in late February.

Iran will play its first two Group G matches in Los Angeles against New Zealand on 15 June and Belgium on 21 June, before facing Egypt in Seattle on 26 June.