BUTEMBO, Congo — A nurse was killed and a health worker severely injured after they were attacked while responding to an Ebola alert in eastern Congo, the World Health Organization said, in the latest of a series of attacks that authorities say are hampering efforts to slow the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in the world.
The attack took place on Saturday in the town of Bafwasende in Tshopo province, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X on Sunday, according to the Associated Press. “Everyone working to protect communities from this deadly disease must be able to work in dignity and safety. Healthcare must always be protected,” he said. The WHO’s regional director for Africa, Dr. Mohamed Yakub Janabi, also condemned the attack. “Misinformation and fear must never fuel violence,” he said. Local authorities had not yet commented on the attack or on any suspects.
The outbreak is already the deadliest in Congo’s history. The health ministry’s most recent data indicates more than 9,800 cases, including more than 4,700 deaths, have been recorded since the outbreak began in May, according to the AP. Neighbouring Uganda moved on Sunday to tighten its defences, imposing a 21-day quarantine on citizens returning from Congo and stepping up traveller screening at Entebbe International Airport and land border crossings, according to reporting from the region.
Violence against responders has shadowed the response from its first weeks. In May, at the start of the outbreak, tents at health centres were set alight in two separate attacks in a single week by angry residents, the AP reported. Response teams have been held captive in some health zones, and teams responsible for safe and dignified burials have been threatened. Last month, a Congolese politician was beaten to death in North Kivu after publicly defending the government’s response to Ebola on a radio show, where he had been urging the public to follow measures such as social distancing and handwashing.
Responders say the hostility is rooted in widespread distrust of the government, fed by its handling of past Ebola outbreaks and by chronic corruption, and in scepticism about the disease itself in some communities. That distrust complicates work in remote areas and emerging hot spots that already face shortages of medical supplies and health workers. The WHO has announced the start of an Ebola vaccine clinical trial in Congo, but vaccination and case-finding teams can only work where they can travel safely.
Health officials say attacks like Saturday’s do direct damage beyond the victims themselves: every assault forces teams to withdraw, slows the tracing of contacts of confirmed cases, and leaves alerts unanswered in precisely the remote communities where the virus can spread unseen. No arrests had been reported in the Bafwasende attack as of Sunday.
