Ebola Treatment Centre Burned as Congo's Death Toll Passes 4,000

On Thursday, Congo's Health Ministry reported that 4,018 people have died in the country's Ebola outbreak, a toll that amounts to nearly half of the 8,300 confirmed cases. The figures describe what has become the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in recorded history, and it is still not under control.

Authorities announced the outbreak on May 15. It is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, a rare strain with no known treatment and no vaccine. It is also the country's 17th Ebola outbreak, and Ituri province, in the northeast, sits at its center.

Earlier this week, the effort took a serious physical blow. A senior UN official said soldiers burned an Ebola-hit camp in Kigonze, on the outskirts of Bunia, while they were searching for weapons. The camp housed a transit centre for infected patients, and the fire forced 19,000 people living there to flee. The United Nations said the already enormous task of halting the virus had just become harder with the loss of a key transit centre for patients needing treatment.

Julien Harneis, the UN's senior Ebola coordinator, explained what that means in practice. Building transit and treatment centres has been a struggle, he said, because they require money and staff, both in short supply. Losing one means losing capacity and investment, having to start over, and, above all, leaving people without the care they need.

The response is also strained by those doing the work. In Bunia, health workers gathered to demand wages they say are owed, and officials quickly dispersed them. Among the protesters were surveillance team members, who trace people exposed to infected patients. Their placards read "No money, no data!" and "No payment for months." Front-line workers have struck several times since the outbreak began, further hampering containment. More than 50 health workers have died after contracting the virus.

The risk reached an international aid organization this week. Médecins Sans Frontières said one of its aid workers was infected while working in Congo. The worker was flown to the Netherlands on a special medical flight, arrived late Thursday night, and was moved to a high-level isolation unit at Leiden University Medical Centre. MSF said the human cost of the crisis is unprecedented in Congo, with communities facing the largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded in the country.

The case counts themselves are hard to read. Africa CDC said newly confirmed cases are falling, but cautioned that this could reflect insecurity and difficulty securing community cooperation in some hot spots rather than real progress. Confirmed cases have slowed from about 850 cases and 470 deaths a week in mid-July to an average of 490 cases and 230 deaths in September. Even so, cases and deaths each rose by a similar 33 per cent through September. The disease has slowed in some areas and accelerated in others, a situation experts call delicate. The World Health Organisation has warned of rapid spread into new health zones, stretching limited resources.

Mistrust runs through all of it. On Sunday, Marie-Célestin Karondwa, a local official with the ruling Union for Democracy and Social Progress party, was attacked and beaten at his home in Butembo, an Ebola hot spot in North Kivu province, for defending government measures against the outbreak. His house was set on fire, and he died of his injuries at a hospital. Authorities launched a village-centred approach last month, but some residents dismiss Ebola as a hoax, and distrust of the government stems from its handling of past outbreaks and chronic corruption.

What to watch next is whether the lost transit centre is replaced, and whether health workers are paid, since the data and care that contain the virus depend on both.