Congo has now confirmed more than 10,000 Ebola infections since the outbreak was declared in May, and the virus is not the only threat facing the people trying to stop it. Late last week the national public health institute put the tally at 9,964; by Tuesday officials said it had crossed five figures. Roughly 48.6% of patients have died. The Bundibugyo strain behind this epidemic has reached eight provinces.
In Bafwasende, a town in Tshopo province, misinformation proved fatal on Friday. A veteran nurse from the general hospital, recently assigned to explain the disease to residents, stopped at a plot of land with a teacher who also did outreach work. People building a house nearby accused the pair of poisoning rivers and latrines with the virus. Youths carrying machetes and clubs then joined in. The nurse was killed before an ambulance could arrive; the teacher survived.
Fear has since emptied the nurses’ homes. Staff in Bafwasende are sleeping inside the hospital under police protection, and soldiers were briefly sent in. A local health official said colleagues were stunned that a man so well known in town could be treated as an outsider. Days before, another outreach worker had his house set alight by a crowd.
Julien Harneis, who coordinates the United Nations response, called the killing a blow to the effort and “an even greater loss to patients.” UN officials say violence and distrust are cutting people off from care just as case numbers peak. Suspicion of health teams in the area predates Ebola: earlier, several workers in Tshopo were killed after being blamed for spreading an imaginary illness.
