In Congo on Thursday, people set fire to an Ebola treatment center in a city at the heart of an outbreak in the east of the country, a witness and a high-ranking police officer reported, according to AP, UNN reports.
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This happened after they were prevented from taking the body of a local resident, amid growing fear and anger over a health crisis that doctors are struggling to contain.
The arson in Rwampara reflects the difficulties faced by health workers trying to contain a rare strain of the Ebola virus using strict measures that can conflict with local customs, such as funeral rites. The disease has been spreading for weeks in a region that lacks proper medical facilities and where many people flee to escape armed conflict.
The bodies of those who die from Ebola can be highly infectious and lead to further spread of the disease when people prepare bodies for burial and gather for funerals. The dangerous work of burying suspected victims is, where possible, supervised by authorities, which can be met with protests from the victims' families and friends.
According to a witness who spoke to the Associated Press by phone, the center in Rwampara was burned by local youth who became enraged while trying to retrieve the body of a friend who likely died of Ebola.
"The police intervened to try to calm the situation, but unfortunately, they did not succeed," said Alexis Burata, a local student who said he was in the area. "The young people eventually set the center on fire. That is the situation."
An AP journalist saw people break into the center and set fire to items inside, as well as what was likely the body of at least one suspected Ebola victim being kept there. Humanitarian workers fled the treatment center in vehicles.
Deputy Senior Commissioner Jean-Claude Mukendi, head of the public security department in Ituri province, said the young people did not understand the burial protocols for a suspected Ebola victim.
"His family, friends, and other young people wanted to take his body home for a funeral, even though the authorities' instructions during this Ebola outbreak are clear," Mukendi said. "All bodies must be buried according to the rules."
Hama Amadou, field coordinator for the humanitarian organization ALIMA, whose teams worked at the center, later stated that calm had been restored and that aid teams were continuing their work at the center.
The outbreak is larger than official figures show, WHO reports
In two provinces of Congo, 160 suspected deaths and 671 suspected cases have been reported, Congolese authorities said on Thursday. Earlier this week, the UN said there were two cases, including one fatality, in neighboring Uganda.
But the WHO said the outbreak is almost certainly much larger and also expressed concern about the speed of spread.
"We are still at the stage where we are ramping up investigations, looking for cases," said Jean Kaseya, Director General of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. "I expect the number of cases to grow as surveillance becomes increasingly rigorous."
The risk of the outbreak spreading globally is low, the WHO stated, but high in the region, where the epicenter of the outbreak is Ituri province, bordering Uganda and South Sudan.
Early detection of the virus is key to saving lives, but experts say the already weak health infrastructure and surveillance capabilities in the region have been further weakened by cuts in international aid. According to the UN, there are more than 920,000 internally displaced persons in Ituri province.
Armed conflict in the region further complicates efforts to manage the crisis. Local leaders said at least 17 people were killed in an attack by militants linked to the Islamic State group on Tuesday in Alima, a village in Ituri.
Medical workers and humanitarian groups said they are in dire need of additional supplies and personnel to respond. Furthermore, there is no available vaccine or medicine for the Bundibugyo strain that caused the outbreak.
An expert stated this week that it will be at least six to nine months before they appear.
Virus has spread to a new province
On Thursday, the M23 rebel group, which controls parts of eastern Congo, reported the death of a person from the disease near the city of Bukavu, about 500 kilometers south of the outbreak's epicenter in Ituri province.
This was the first case confirmed in South Kivu province, and another case was reported there later that day. Previously, cases had only been reported in Ituri and North Kivu provinces, as well as in neighboring Uganda.
The virus spread undetected for weeks after the first known death in late April, as Congolese health authorities were testing for a different Ebola virus that more commonly causes outbreaks in the country. According to the WHO, health officials have not yet found "patient zero."
The scale of the outbreak now suggests that it "likely started several months ago," said Anaïs Legand, a WHO expert on viral hemorrhagic fevers.