Baby buried in Ebola outbreak’s third orphanage death
Mourners gathered to bury a six-month-old girl who died of Ebola, the third child to die at an orphanage in eastern Congo, as authorities scrambled to contain the latest outbreak.
While Vanisa Anifa’s small coffin was lowered to the ground by masked and gloved healthcare workers, citizens carrying crosses stood at a certain distance. A Catholic priest also prayed over his funeral.
“It is a feeling of sadness because we have lost one of our own, the daughter of the church,” Father Innocent Ndogo said Friday.
“As we always say, the Lord gives, the Lord takes away.”
Ituri, the region at the center of the current outbreak, has reported more than 90 percent of cases.
The response was complicated by residents clashing with health experts over irregular burials and the at times militarized response to the epidemic.
The impersonal nature of safe burial practices and the seriousness of the epidemic were made clear on Friday when only healthcare workers wearing protective gear were allowed to carry out the coffin and burial.
There is no approved treatment or vaccine for Bundibugyo, the Ebola strain in this outbreak, and some health workers even said they did not have masks, gloves and other equipment to protect themselves.
There are 933 confirmed cases and 245 deaths due to the current outbreak, Congolese Health Minister Roger Kamba said during a visit to Bunia on Friday.
Kamba also stated that all health centers in Ituri will be free and the bonuses of health workers will be doubled.
The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday there were 35,000 suspected potential contacts.
Although the epidemic is spreading rapidly, it is not as deadly as the Ebola outbreak in 2014, which killed more than 11,000 people.
The Bundibugyo strain was not tested in the early days because there was no approved vaccine or treatment.
One of the reasons why the epidemic has spread so much is this lack of testing.
The more common Zaire virus, for which there is a vaccine, was responsible for most of the last 16 disease outbreaks in Congo.
Alex Lock, communications officer of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, asked people not to remain indifferent.
“He was a baby. He had his whole life ahead of him. Unfortunately, he contracted the disease, which, as you know, is a disease that is transmitted from one person to another,” Lock said.
Although the outbreak was concentrated in Ituri, cases were also recorded in North Kivu and South Kivu provinces and spread across the border into Uganda; 19 confirmed cases have been reported here and two people have died.
