Ebola Workers in Congo Attacked by Machete Mob as Cases Pass 10,000

Two community health workers trying to spread awareness of Ebola in the eastern Congo were attacked by a machete-wielding mob on Friday, further demonstrating the difficulty of controlling the deadly disease among hostile and suspicious rural residents as the total number of cases surpassed 10,000.

One of the health workers, a well-known and experienced male nurse, was killed in the machete attack. The other, a teacher, was seriously injured but escaped.

According to local officials, the two were inspecting a plot of land in the town of Bafwasende province when they were confronted by a group of people who were building a home nearby.

“Here are the people that are spreading the Ebola virus through people’s toilets and rivers!” the angry group of local residents shouted, summoning an even angrier band of youths armed with clubs and machetes. The nurse died at the scene after the mob attacked.

A few days before that deadly incident, another community worker in the area was attacked by a mob and escaped with his life, but the mob set his house on fire.

In late September, a senior politician named Marie-Celestin Karondwa was robbed and beaten to death by a mob after appearing on a radio program to discuss the Ebola outbreak. Karondwa was killed near his home, and the mob also set fire to his house.

Health officials in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have long complained about local superstitions, and deliberate disinformation spread by insurgents and jihadis in the area, creating resistance to cooperation with medical personnel.

Mobs in the eastern Congo have become violent when hospitals refuse to give back the infected corpses of dead Ebola victims for traditional burials. Some people are afraid to visit hospitals because they think doctors are deliberately injecting patients with Ebola. Others do not believe Ebola is a real disease.

“We are shocked at how the population turned against this nurse. It is ⁠impossible to believe that he was mistaken for a stranger,” a local health official said of Friday’s machete murder.

According to the official, doctors and nurses are sheltering at the hospital in Bafwasende under police guard after the attack, because they are afraid to go home.

“Everyone working to protect communities from this deadly disease must be able to work in dignity and safety. Healthcare must always be protected,” World Health Organization (W.H.O.) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sunday in response to the killing of the nurse.

“The killing of a nurse yesterday in Bafwasende is ​a loss to the Ebola response and an even greater loss to patients,” added senior United Nations Ebola coordinator Julien Harneis.

The DRC health ministry said on Tuesday that the total number of cases in the Ebola Bundibugyo outbreak has exceeded 10,000, making it the fastest-spreading Ebola outbreak in history. Almost half of the people infected by the rare strain of Ebola have died.

Most of the cases have been recorded in the DRC, where Ebola has spread across eight provinces and 66 health zones, after the outbreak was initially confirmed in just three health zones in May. 

Virologists have been unable to trace the full chain of infection in about 80 percent of these cases. An outbreak is not considered to be under control until at least 95 percent of infections can be traced to known contacts of the patient.

Nigeria’s first Ebola case in over a decade, the Uganda-born wife of a Swiss diplomat based in the capital of Abuja, was flown to a hospital in Switzerland for treatment on Monday.

According to Nigerian Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate, the infected woman is “stable, conscious, and communicating,” and her tests are showing continued improvement. Her husband is showing no symptoms of Ebola, but has been placed under observation in Switzerland as a precaution.

Arguments are still boiling between Ugandan, Nigerian, and Congolese health officials over how, and where, the woman contracted Ebola. The Ugandan government insists it has no local transmission of the disease, so she could not have contracted it during her recent two-week holiday in the country. 

Ugandan officials suggested she might have picked up Ebola while traveling through the DRC, but the Africa Centers for Disease Control (Africa CDC) said her travel documents did not show her visiting the Congo.