Angry residents of a town at the centre of the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo attacked and burned a tent that was part of a health centre where people are being treated for the virus, staff said on Saturday. It was the second such attack in the region in a week.
No one was hurt in the attack, according to initial reports. But as patients ran out to escape the fire, 18 people with suspected Ebola infections left the facility and are now missing, a local hospital director said.
The angry residents arrived at the clinic in the town of Mongbwalu on Friday night and set fire to a tent set up for suspected and confirmed Ebola cases by the Doctors Without Borders humanitarian group, said Dr Richard Lokudi, director of the Mongbwalu hospital.
“We strongly condemn this act, as it caused panic among the staff and also resulted in the escape of 18 suspected cases into the community,” he said.
On Thursday, another treatment centre in the town of Rwampara was burned down after family members were banned from retrieving the body of a local man suspected to have died of Ebola.
The bodies of those who die from Ebola can be highly contagious and lead to further spread when people prepare them for burial and gather for funerals. The dangerous work of burying suspected victims is being managed by authorities, which can be met with protests from families.
A communal burial for Ebola patients in Rwampara took place on Saturday under tight security as tensions between health workers and the local community ran high, said David Basima, a team leader with the Red Cross overseeing burials.
Basima said his team, after arriving at the scene, experienced a lot of difficulties, including resistance from young people and the community.
“We were forced to alert the authorities so that they could come to our aid, just for safety,” said Basima.
The World Health Organization has said that the outbreak now poses a very high risk for Congo, up from a previous categorisation of high, but that the risk of the disease spreading globally remains low.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that 82 cases and seven deaths have been confirmed in Congo, but that the outbreak is believed to be much larger.
There is no available vaccine for the Bundibugyo virus, a rare type of Ebola, which spread undetected for weeks in Congo’s Ituri province following the first known death. There are now 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths, though more are expected as surveillance expands.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Saturday that three of its volunteers had died from the outbreak in Mongbwalu. The agency said it believed the three healthcare workers contracted the virus on March 27 while handling dead bodies as part of a humanitarian mission unrelated to Ebola.
Meanwhile, US federal health officials said on Friday night that they are banning green card holders who have been in Ebola-affected countries from returning to the United States. According to a notice, the US government is enacting a rule that restricts green card holders who have recently been in Congo, Uganda or South Sudan from reentering the country. It is unclear why South Sudan was on the list, as the country has not confirmed any Ebola cases so far in this outbreak.
