Group ‘remove’ woman, child from DR Congo Ebola clinic
Armed attackers lured a woman and her daughter away from a health center in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, authorities said, raising fears that the Ebola virus will spread further.
Attackers armed with bladed weapons broke into a clinic near Butembo in North Kivu province late on Monday and took the pair away, according to a provincial notice seen by Reuters.
The identity of the attackers or their reasons were not specified in the notification.
It was stated that the six-year-old child tested positive for Ebola.
The incident underscores how mistrust and social distrust of healthcare workers are undermining efforts to contain the outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where repeated attacks on medical staff and responders have disrupted efforts to trace contacts and isolate suspected cases.
Ebola response incident manager in North Kivu, Dr. “So far we have not yet found the two people we are looking for. We make a solemn appeal to them to go to an Ebola treatment center as soon as possible, because returning to the community risks deteriorating their health and, above all, infecting their relatives,” Lubambo Maboko Gaston told Reuters.
Lubambo stated that no medical personnel were injured in the attack, adding that the health center was not protected by the army or police.
The incident comes amid a series of security incidents targeting Ebola response teams in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, including recent attacks on safe burial teams and treatment centers in neighboring Ituri province.
According to government data released on Tuesday, North Kivu has so far recorded 67 confirmed cases and 38 deaths; this made it the second worst-hit province after Ituri, which accounts for more than 90 percent of cases.
According to government data, the epidemic infected 837 people across the country and 196 people died.
The head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned on Tuesday that the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo could be the worst outbreak yet.
The disease, which is transmitted through bodily fluids even after death, is rapidly spreading across three provinces in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to government data.
“If we do not stop the epidemic very soon, the situation will be worse than those in West Africa and Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo,” Africa CDC Director General Jean Kaseya told a virtual meeting of African heads of state and donors in Burundi. he said.
Its warning, echoing a similar prediction from the US CDC, referenced the epidemic that affected Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone from 2014 to 2016 and killed more than 11,000 people, and a less deadly outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2018.
