Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
■ Efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak in the Congo have been hindered by violence.
Spread of deadly virus causing panic, mistrust
BENI, Congo — A runaway hearse carrying an Ebola victim has become the latest example of sometimes violent community resistance complicating efforts to contain a Congo outbreak — and causing a worrying new rise in cases.
The deadly virus’ appearance for the first time in the far northeast has sparked fear. Suspected contacts of infected people have tried to slip away. Residents have assaulted health teams. The rate of new Ebola cases has more than doubled since the start of this month, experts say.
Safe burials are particularly sensitive as some outraged family members reject the intervention of health workers in the deeply personal moment, even as they put their own lives at risk.
On Wednesday, a wary peace was negotiated over the body of an Ebola victim, one of 95 deaths among 172 confirmed cases so far, Congo’s health ministry said. Her family demanded that an acquaintance drive the hearse, while they agreed to wear protective gear to carry the casket. A police vehicle would follow.
On the way to the cemetery, however, the hearse peeled away “at full speed,” the ministry said. A violent confrontation followed with local youths once the hearse was found at the family’s own burial plot elsewhere. The procession eventually reached the cemetery by day’s end.
The next day, with a better understanding of what was at stake, several family members appeared voluntarily at a hospital for Ebola vaccinations, the ministry said.
“They swore no one had manipulated the corpse,” it added. Ebola spreads via bodily fluids of those infected, including the dead.
The Beni community where the confrontation occurred is at the center of Ebola containment efforts. To the alarm of the World Health Organization and others, it is also where community resistance has been the most persistent — and where many of the new cases are found.
Chronic mistrust after years of rebel attacks is part of the “toxic mix” in Beni, WHO’s emergencies chief, Peter Salama, said in a Twitter post.
So far, the Ebola work in Beni has been suspended twice since the outbreak was declared on Aug. 1.