The Democratic Republic of the Congo's Health Ministry said Thursday that 4,018 people have died of Ebola among 8,300 confirmed cases — nearly half of all infections — in what has become the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history. Making things worse, soldiers burned down a transit center for Ebola patients outside Bunia earlier this week while searching for weapons, forcing 19,000 people in the camp to flee.
The outbreak was declared in eastern Congo on May 15, caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus — which has no known treatment or vaccine. Thursday's figures put the death toll at 4,018 out of 8,300 cases, a fatality rate of roughly 48%.
A senior UN official said soldiers burned an Ebola-hit displacement camp housing a transit center for infected patients earlier this week during a weapons search in Kigonze, on the outskirts of Bunia. The 19,000 people in the camp were forced to flee. "The enormous challenge of halting the spread of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo just became even harder after a key transit centre for patients requiring treatment burned down in Ituri province," the United Nations said.
Creating transit and treatment centers has been a struggle, said Julien Harneis, the UN's senior Ebola coordinator — "requiring money and staff, all of which are in short supply." "When we lose a center, that means we lose capacity, we lose investment, and we have to start again. And above all, it means that people do not get access to the care that they really need," Harneis said.
In Bunia, the capital of Ituri province and the heart of the outbreak, health workers took to the streets demanding overdue wages — including surveillance team members who track down contacts of infected patients. They waved placards reading "No money, no data!" and "No payment for months" before officials dispersed them. Protester Biongi Beiza said some workers hadn't been paid for August and September, with "no explanation from the administration." Frontline workers have gone on strike several times since the outbreak began, further hampering containment.
According to Al Jazeera, mourners have buried a Congolese official who was killed after defending the Ebola response. In outbreak zones rife with rumor and mistrust, those who speak up for disease control are becoming targets.
Earlier this week, Doctors Without Borders announced that an aid worker had contracted Ebola while working in Congo and was evacuated by air to the Netherlands for isolation. That even internationally protected responders are falling ill shows how fiercely the virus is spreading.
For Congo, this is no longer just a public-health crisis: a burned treatment center, 19,000 displaced, unpaid health workers, a murdered official — every link in the containment chain is stretched tighter.