Doctors battling an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo face increasing challenges as attacks on health facilities and fleeing patients disrupt response efforts in the country’s northeast, Reuters reported.At least three such incidents have been reported so far in Ituri Province, where the first Ebola cases were detected. Two attacks over the weekend targeted the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, allowing more than two dozen patients to escape.Dr Richard Lokodo, medical director of Mongbwalu General Hospital, told Reuters there was widespread mistrust and denial surrounding the outbreak.“There is denial of the disease among the population, with some members wanting to receive the bodies of suspected and/or confirmed cases,” he said.According to Lokodo, 18 Ebola patients escaped on Saturday after unknown assailants set fire to tents set up by medical charity Doctors Without Borders to isolate patients. Test results for four of these patients later came back, including one confirmed case of Ebola.“We have one confirmed case of Ebola that continues to spread in the community and evade the response,” Lokodo said.On Sunday, the hospital faced four more waves of attacks allegedly led by youths mobilized by relatives of a Christian religious leader who died of Ebola. An additional seven patients escaped during the unrest, while a suspected Ebola patient suffering from bleeding died while trying to escape during the second attack.
Police in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo fired shots into the air after angry crowds tried to recover the bodies of relatives who died at the Ebola treatment center in Mongbwalu, according to local media reports.Recent events have revived memories of the 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo, during which more than 25 health workers were killed in attacks targeting treatment centres.Doctors on the front lines are also facing shortages of essential supplies as the virus spreads rapidly across the region. Lokodo said the attackers wanted to release the bodies of Ebola victims for burial, and warned that unsafe burials, where family members handle bodies without protective equipment, are the main cause of transmission. Earlier this week, crowds in Rwambara town, about 85 kilometers southeast of Mongbwalu, also set fire to isolation tents at a hospital after they were prevented from transporting the body of a man suspected of having died of Ebola for burial.The World Health Organization has described the current outbreak as the third largest outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain ever and declared it a public health emergency of international concern.WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that more than 900 suspected cases, including 101 confirmed cases and at least 220 suspected deaths, have been recorded so far.Earlier on Monday, Congo’s neighbor Uganda reported two additional Ebola cases, bringing the total number of confirmed infections to seven.
