PandemicsEbola response in Congo runs into community resistance
The Ebola virus has so far killed 12 people in Congo, with 52 additional cases reported as of last Friday. Ebola responders in Congo are revealing more about local practices and community mistrust, which in some instances are hampering the actions needed to curb the spread of the disease in the country’s outbreak hot spots. Experts note that the United States is playing a less prominent role in the response, raising questions about the U.S. policies regarding global health security.
Ebola responders in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are revealing more about local practices and community mistrust, which in some instances are hampering the actions needed to curb the spread of the disease in the country’s outbreak hot spots.
In another development, Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) on Friday said the United States is playing a less prominent role in the response, a sign that suggests the international response is more prepared to tackle such outbreaks but also raises questions about the nation’s mixed signals regarding global health security.
Responders face familiar foe in community mistrust
A representative from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said at a news conference in Geneva that a doctor and nurse were threatened by local people who accused the health workers of bringing the disease into the communities, while residents of another town blocked medics from testing the body of a person who died from suspected Ebola, Reuters reported today.
Jean-Clement Cabrol, MSF’s emergency medical coordinator, said the information campaign is under way, but it’s still insufficient, and religious and traditional leaders need to be tapped more to help with the messaging.
During West Africa’s outbreak, responders faced similar challenges, sometimes even marked by violence. And the WHO and its partners deployed anthropologists and community messaging in the current outbreak’s early days.
The Reuters report also had more details about the two patients who left an Ebola isolation unit in Mbandaka, the heavily populated Equateur province capital. One was a woman who was taken to an evangelical church where she prayed with nineteen other people before returning to the hospital where she died the next night.
Health officials went to the church to vaccinate several people, according to the report.
In other developments, a Catholic priest has been isolated in Mbandaka with a suspected Ebola infection, Agence-France Presse (AFP) reported today, citing an anonymous source.
