Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is still outpacing response efforts, and frontline health workers there face very risky conditions World Health Organisation has said.
The outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola has infected over 1,000 people in Congo and 20 in neighbouring Uganda, reaching the highest first-month total of any episode of the disease.
It was detected late, as experts say the virus had already been circulating for months before it was officially declared on May 15.
“Despite the good progress we have made, we still face major challenges, and the outbreak is continuing to outpace the response,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference from the organization’s headquarters in Geneva that was broadcast online.
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Abdirahman Mahamud said health workers continued to face “abduction threats, crimes and being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” citing seven incidents in which they had been targeted.
Local people are often deeply distrustful of officials and outsiders in the region. They also resent not being allowed to bury loved ones, in accordance with local traditions, due to precautions taken to keep the virus from spreading, according to reports.
Congo’s testing capacity has been ramped up to roughly 2,000 per day from 8 at the beginning of the outbreak, the WHO said.
“A big priority of the response is to scale up decentralisation of the testing,” the U.N. agency’s Maria Van Kerkhove said.
Reuters/Shakirat Sadiq
