Ebola treatment tent set ablaze again in eastern Congo with 18 suspected cases escaping

BUNIA: In eastern Congo, a tent used for treating the Ebola outbreak was set on fire for the second time this week, with 18 allegedly infected patients escaping into the general population, the local hospital director said on Saturday.

Unidentified people arrived at the clinic in Mongbwalu, a town at the centre of the outbreak of the Bundibugyo virus, a rare type of Ebola, on Friday night and set fire to a tent set up by the Doctors Without Borders charity, for suspected and confirmed Ebola cases, Dr Richard Lokudi, director of the Mongbwalu General Reference Hospital, told The Associated Press.




"We strongly condemn this act, as it caused panic among the staff of the Mongbwalu Referral Hospital and also resulted in the escape of 18 suspected cases into the community," he said.

On Thursday, another treatment centre in the town of Rwampara was burned down after family members were restricted from retrieving the body of a local man.

The bodies of those who died of Ebola can be highly contagious and can lead to further spread when people gather for funerals. Burials of Ebola victims are being managed by authorities, wherever possible, which is met by protests from families and friends.

A burial for Ebola patients in Bunia, another town within the outbreak zone, took place on Saturday under high security as tensions between health workers and the local community ran high.

On Friday, in an effort to curb the spread of the virus, authorities in northeastern Congo banned funeral wakes and gatherings of more than 50 people. The World Health Organisation said that the outbreak now poses a "very high" risk for Congo, up from a previous categorisation of "high", but the risk of the disease spreading globally remains low.

Director of the WHO, General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Friday that 82 cases and seven deaths have been confirmed in Congo, but that the outbreak is believed to be "much larger."

There is no available vaccine for the Bundibugyo virus, which spread undetected for weeks in Congo's Ituri province following the first known death, while authorities were testing for a more common, Ebola virus. At present, there are 750 alleged cases and 177 suspected deaths, though more are expected as surveillance expands.

Dr Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said a response to the outbreak must include building trust with communities.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Saturday that three of its volunteers had died from the outbreak in Mongbwalu. The agency said it believed the three healthcare workers contracted the virus while carrying out dead body management activities on March 27, as part of a humanitarian mission unrelated to Ebola.

This would significantly push back the timeline of the outbreak from the previous first confirmed death in late April in the town of Bunia, the capital of Ituri.