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By Nellie Peyton
DAKAR, Jan. 24 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Dozens of Congolese Ebola survivors dispel rumors and take care of isolated patients and children during the world's second most deadly epidemic, officials said Thursday. health.
The virus is spreading rapidly in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with 713 confirmed and probable cases and 439 deaths. It was only surpbaded by the 2014-2016 epidemic in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, which claimed the lives of more than 11,000 people.
In Congo, nearly 250 patients have recovered since the beginning of the epidemic in July. Research has shown that the disease confers immunity on survivors.
"I love this job a lot," said Lydie Besolo, an 18-year-old Beni teenager who survived Ebola and spends her afternoons after school hours working as a nurse in a health center. managed by a medical badociation, Médecins Sans Frontières. MSF).
"I tell my story (to the patients), it helps them," she said, adding that she hoped to become a doctor someday.
Health workers say that one of the main challenges of this epidemic has been to dispel rumors about the disease. Suspicious of foreign interventions and political plots, residents attacked volunteers and refused vaccines.
Ebola hit the Congo during a period of political tension ahead of the December elections to end President Joseph Kabila's 17-year rule.
At the last minute, the electoral commission canceled the vote in Beni and in other areas hit by the Ebola virus, which are strongholds of the opposition.
"I tell them that it's not politics, it's a real disease," said Modeste Kasereka Kikopo, a survivor who works in the MSF center as an electrician and helps to awareness.
The charity said some 20 survivors work in its Beni center, mainly to treat patients.
Twelve survivors work in a crèche for children separated from their parents, said the United Nations Children's Agency (UNICEF), while nearly 40 survivors are involved in community engagement efforts led by the Red Cross.
"Ebola survivors are an essential entry point for building trust in the community," said Jamie LeSueur, chief of operations for the Ebola response of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Red Crescent (IFRC).
"Having someone who lives this horrible experience and comes out alive shows people that they can survive the disease and that we are here to support the communities, not to harm them", he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. (Report by Nellie Peyton, edited by Katy Migiro) Thank you for crediting the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, which covers humanitarian news, women's and LGBT + rights, human trafficking, human rights property and climate change Visit http://news.trust.org)
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