Rescuers who tried to bury an Ebola victim in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo were chased with machetes, while the outbreak had already spread across an area larger than France. Bloomberg reports this, citing data from the authorities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the UN and humanitarian organizations, UNN writes.
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Just over 100 days after the outbreak was declared, more than 5,500 people have been infected and 2,642 have died. Julien Harneis, the UN’s senior Ebola coordinator, said the scale of the epidemic is growing faster than the response capacity.
The outbreak is spreading faster and more widely than the response to Ebola
According to him, the epidemic already covers an area larger than France.
Attacks complicate the fight against the epidemic
The violence has already forced some rescuers to leave the affected areas. Last week, the Uganda Red Cross Society evacuated staff from the Congo after an attack on an Ebola response team near the epicenter in Ituri province. One worker was seriously injured, one response vehicle was destroyed, and two others were damaged.
A burial team was also attacked in North Kivu, leaving several people injured and one person dead. In other areas, families obstructed the examination of bodies, took the deceased away from treatment centers and blocked the work of burial teams.
There are also problems with isolating infected people. Fourteen patients left treatment centers in Ituri, while the authorities separately recorded 14 cases of refusal to isolate in various health zones.
Workers are on strike
At the same time, some medical workers are on strike because of unpaid salaries. Five screening points were not operating in Haut-Uele, while workers from public organizations in North Kivu and Tshopo have not received payments for months.
Médecins Sans Frontières is calling for intensified case detection and infection control directly within communities. According to the organization, more than 60% of deaths since the beginning of the current outbreak have occurred outside healthcare facilities.
The authorities in Congo are also preparing to expand the use of the Ervebo vaccine. The first 16,520 doses arrived in Kinshasa as part of a shipment of more than 50,000 doses. At the same time, the vaccine is not approved against the Bundibugyo strain, which caused the current outbreak, so its potential effectiveness is still being assessed.