Police fire shots to disperse crowds at DRC Ebola centre
The virus is not the only thing health workers in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are fighting.
On Sunday, police in Mongwalu discharged warning shots into the air as crowds surged toward an Ebola treatment centre, demanding the bodies of two relatives who had died inside. It was not a spontaneous outburst. The same facility had an isolation tent burned to the ground the night before. Days earlier, a hospital in Rwampara, 85 kilometres away, suffered the same fate when residents torched tents after being turned away with the body of a man suspected to have died from the disease.
The pattern tells a story that goes beyond grief. It speaks to something health officials have long known makes Ebola uniquely difficult to fight in this part of the world, the communities most at risk do not trust the people trying to save them.
Dr Richard Lokudu, medical director of Mongwalu General Hospital, told the Associated Press the facility was on “general alert” following Sunday’s confrontation. But alerts and armed police can only do so much when the deeper problem is a breakdown of faith between institutions and the people they serve.
That breakdown has consequences measured in lives. An Ebola victim’s body remains highly infectious after death, and traditional burial practices, which often involve washing and touching the deceased, are among the fastest routes the virus travels. Red Cross volunteers have been conducting safe burials under police escort precisely to interrupt that chain. Three of those volunteers are now among the dead, likely infected in the course of that work.
Meanwhile, the virus itself presents a challenge that compounds everything else. This outbreak, DR Congo’s seventeenth, is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, a rare variant that had not appeared in over a decade. There is no approved vaccine for it, no medication that specifically targets it, and the WHO has estimated that even under optimistic conditions, a vaccine is at least nine months away. Over 900 suspected cases and 220 suspected deaths have already been recorded since Africa CDC declared the outbreak in Ituri province on May 15, a declaration the WHO quickly elevated to a global public health emergency.
The geography makes containment harder still. Cases have spread beyond Ituri into North and South Kivu, provinces that border Rwanda and where significant territory is controlled by the rebel group M23. Active conflict and health crises do not coexist easily, and the presence of armed factions has disrupted the kind of systematic contact tracing and community outreach that an outbreak of this nature demands.
Uganda has confirmed seven infections, two of them announced on Monday, both health workers. Nine other African nations, among them Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Tanzania, have been placed on alert by Africa CDC.
The financial response is beginning to take shape. DR Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan have agreed on a $319 million containment budget, though only a fraction of it has been secured. South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa committed $5 million on Monday, and Africa CDC director-general Dr Jean Kaseya said African business leaders will gather in Lagos on May 29 to mobilise further resources, with the US, UK, European Union, and World Bank also moving toward contributions.
Kaseya, speaking to BBC World Service, said the continental strategy centres on efficient case management, minimising waste, and, notably, ensuring the dead receive what he called “dignified funerals.” It is an acknowledgment, carefully worded, that the anger on the streets of Mongwalu is not irrational. People want to bury their loved ones with dignity. The challenge is finding a way to honour that need without feeding the outbreak further.
Until that trust is rebuilt, the shots fired into the air in Mongwalu will keep echoing.
Source: BBC
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