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GENEVA – The number of deaths from Ebola during the last epidemic in Congo is expected to exceed 1,000 later Friday, the World Health Organization said, as attacks continue against health workers trying to contain the spread of the virus.
The epidemic reported in eastern Congo in August is already the second deadliest in history, and efforts to control it have been complicated by an unstable security situation and deep mistrust of the community.
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Ebola treatment centers are under repeated attack and a Cameroonian epidemiologist working for the WHO was killed last month during an assault on a Butembo hospital, the epicenter of the epidemic. Another attack Thursday in Butembo was postponed, said Mike Ryan, WHO's chief of emergencies.
Insecurity has become a "major impediment to access, dialogue and service to the communities we wish to serve in the fight against Ebola," Ryan told reporters in Geneva.
He added that 119 attacks have been recorded since January, including 42 directly against health facilities, with 85 health workers injured or killed. Dozens of rebel groups operate in the region, and the community's rejection of health workers is partly motivated by political rivalries, he said.
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"Whenever we managed to regain control of the virus and contain it, we had serious security problems," Ryan said. "We anticipate a scenario of continuous intense transmission" of the disease.
Ebola's death toll rose to 994 on Friday, but it is expected to exceed 1,000 when Congo's health ministry releases its daily figures later in the day.
The 2014-2016 epidemic in western Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, in West Africa, has attracted worldwide attention, since it has killed more than 11 000 people.
WHO has maintained that this outbreak of Ebola is under control geographically, even as the number of cases increases in a dense and extremely mobile population near the border with Uganda and Rwanda.
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More than 109,000 people have received an experimental but effective Ebola vaccine. Ryan added that the authorities were planning to introduce another one.
He also said funding for the Ebola response was facing an "urgent urgent deficit" of some $ 54 million and he called for increased aid from the Congo and the world.
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