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GENEVA – Attacks on Ebola treatment centers in eastern Congo threaten to undermine the gains of the current outbreak of the deadly virus, said Thursday the director general of the World Health Organization, which announced the fourth attack on a health center.
Nearly 600 people died of Ebola in this volatile region, making it the second-most deadly in history.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who has just returned from a visit to the affected areas in Congo, insisted that efforts to contain Ebola were succeeding. He added that the WHO hoped that the outbreak would be over in the next six months.
His optimistic record on Thursday contrasts with that proposed last week by the head of Doctors Without Borders, who had to withdraw from two Ebola centers as a result of attacks. Eastern Congo is home to a myriad of armed groups and the Ebola outbreak has compounded the political and economic grievances of many residents of the region.
Doctors Without Borders said in recent weeks that 43% of new cases in the cities of Katwa and Butembo, at the epicenter of the center, had no known connection with other cases. This means that energetic efforts to follow the contacts of the patients do not fully bear fruit.
And more than 40% of deaths still occur in communities rather than in Ebola treatment centers. The bodies of the victims are very infectious and the rescue group said the figures show that mistrust of the community is still widespread.
Tedros told reporters in Geneva that a much bigger crisis had been averted: the Ebola virus was controlled in eastern Congo without spreading across the huge Central African nation or at the borders with neighboring countries.
"Despite the extremely difficult situation, the outbreak has been contained in 11 of the 28 affected communities," said Tedros.
"You can not say that it's a failure when the epidemic contracts," he added.
Doctors Without Borders has described the conditions at the epicenter of Congo as "toxic", saying that government security forces complicate efforts by forcing people to go to treatment centers.
In the midst of the brutal response to the Ebola response, four health centers were attacked. During the latest attack, one person was killed and another wounded on Thursday in an attack on an Ebola health center, according to Richard Nyembo, a local administrator in Lubero province. The violence erupted in Mamboa, about 50 km from Butembo, one of the hot spots of the disease currently reported by WHO. The attackers targeted an Ebola transit center, where suspected cases are badessed and referred to treatment centers in the area.
Congo has experienced periodic epidemics of Ebola since its first identification in 1976. At least 584 people died among the 927 confirmed and probable cases of this epidemic.
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