WHO calls for ceasefire in DRC to tackle Ebola outbreak
Rachel Savage | The Guardian
The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for an immediate ceasefire in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to combat a growing Ebola outbreak. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned of a 'catastrophic collision between disease and conflict' as suspected cases approach 900 and attacks on health facilities undermine response efforts.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has called on all warring parties in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to immediately cease hostilities to allow health workers to contain the resurgent Ebola outbreak.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on social media that the region is experiencing a “catastrophic collision between disease and conflict,” with the outbreak in Ituri province overwhelming response capacity. He said he would visit the DRC this week.
According to WHO data as of August 12, there have been 900 suspected cases and 223 suspected Ebola deaths in the DRC, plus seven confirmed cases and one death in Uganda. The outbreak was confirmed on May 15 in Ituri, a northeastern province bordering South Sudan and Uganda.
Eastern DRC is home to numerous armed groups. While the government controls most of Ituri province, insecurity had been rising before the Ebola outbreak. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that nearly 1 million people in the province have been displaced by conflict.
The outbreak has spread south into rebel-held areas of North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, where the Rwanda-backed M23 group controls large swathes of territory.
Tedros said: “Stopping this Ebola transmission depends entirely on humanitarian access. But ongoing fighting is causing mass displacement, pushing at-risk contacts into overcrowded camps and cutting off key isolation corridors. Frontline workers are risking their lives, while attacks on health facilities make case finding and contact tracing nearly impossible. We cannot build community trust or isolate patients while bombs are falling. We call on all parties to the conflict to agree to an immediate ceasefire to stop this outbreak.”
The response is further complicated by the mobile nature of many communities in Ituri, where gold mines attract migrant workers, as well as by cuts in international aid.
Philippe Guiton, country director for aid agency World Vision in the DRC, said: “For children, the risks are especially severe. Years of conflict have weakened community systems, and acute malnutrition leaves many young bodies too weak to fight a virus as vicious as Ebola.”
Efforts are also hampered by attacks on health facilities from people who want authorities to release Ebola patients’ bodies for burial. Traditional funeral rites involve families washing and touching the body. However, Ebola victims’ remains are highly infectious and have been a major vector of transmission in previous outbreaks in the region.
On August 12-13, residents attacked a hospital in Mongbwalu, Ituri. The hospital’s medical director, Dr. Richard Lokodu, told Reuters that 18 Ebola patients fled the facility on August 12 when “unknown individuals” burned down isolation tents. On August 13, another seven patients escaped, and a suspected Ebola case died of hemorrhaging while fleeing.
In Uganda, WHO said all seven confirmed cases were reported in Kampala, including a driver who had transported another case; a Congolese woman who traveled to Uganda for treatment; a Congolese health worker who worked with Congolese seeking care in Uganda; and two Ugandan health workers who had treated an Ebola patient.
