Fighting between Rwandan-backed rebels and the Congolese army has put millions of people at high risk of death from the spread of disease, Africa's main health advisory body has said.

The war - concentrated in the city of Goma, in eastern Congo, where 3 million people live - exponentially increases the risk of diseases such as mpox, measles and cholera, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is also home to almost a million displaced citizens, the CDC said.

"Weapons can't kill all of us, but outbreaks can," said the Director-General of Africa's CDC, Jean Kaseya, at a briefing on Thursday. "It's not acceptable for us in Africa to still have this kind of open warfare."

Conflicts are complicating contact tracing, infection prevention and access to food, which increases the risk of disease.

The World Food Program has halted the distribution of basic nutrition in Goma because the safety of its staff is not guaranteed and violence has cut off access to the main roads and the airport.

"Food and water supplies are very low," said Cynthia Jones, WFP's emergency coordinator in eastern Congo, at an earlier briefing. "The next 24 hours are critical."

The war is also overloading the health system. "The medical and hospital services are overwhelmed by the number of wounded individuals," said Jones.

The conflict in eastern Congo has been simmering since the mid-1990s, after the Rwandan genocide. The current violence involves dozens of armed groups, struggles for political and economic power, long-running ethnic tensions and troops from countries such as Uganda, Burundi, South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi. (Bloomberg).