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PARIS – Hearing and mistrust of health staff may have thwarted attempts to combat the Ebola virus during the current outbreak of deadly disease in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Wednesday announced researchers.
It is now known that more than 1,000 people have been infected during the eight-month epidemic, of which nearly two-thirds have died, according to the country's health ministry.
A study of nearly 1,000 people in the cities of Beni and Butembo in central Congo revealed that only one-third of those surveyed trusted their help to help them during the epidemic and that more a quarter felt that the Ebola virus did not exist.
An even higher proportion of respondents (36%) thought the disease had been manufactured to destabilize the country, and most of the 961 respondents said they heard false rumors about the epidemic.
The authors of the study, published in the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases, said that such mistrust was a factor in prolonging the epidemic.
Patrick Vinck, of Harvard Medical School and lead author of the study, said more than one-third of Ebola cases were treated in their respective communities.
"This means that people do not drive their patients to an Ebola center and do not report the disease to professionals, which has a direct influence on the risk of transmission," he said.
The current Ebola crisis in DR Congo is already the second deadliest ever, after the epidemic that hit West Africa in 2014-16 and killed more than 11 people. 300 people.
After the panic caused by this epidemic, millions have been spent to develop an effective vaccine.
However, Mr Vinck said that there was not enough thought about how the vaccine could be received by local communities.
Only 589 respondents in the survey – less than two-thirds – said they would accept an Ebola vaccine.
"Without understanding how to administer the vaccine, but more generally, getting people to listen, believe what you are saying, and adopt the behavior you are promoting, it will be a challenge," Vinck said.
"This challenge fits into the context of decades of violence and bad governance, so trust in institutional actors is really very weak."
Ebola was first discovered in 1974 in a village near the Ebola River in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which gave it its name.
The current outbreak began in the region of North Kivu, affected by violence, on August 1, 2018, before spreading to the neighboring province of Ituri.
The World Health Organization has denounced several attacks on Ebola treatment centers by local militias. – AFP
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