Attack kills 66 and hampers Ebola response
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Beto
Tedros Adhanom GhebreyesusNIAID · CC BY 2.0 · Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: Lula Oficial · CC BY-SA 4.0An attack in Cantine-Aloya killed 66 civilians, including three health workers, and led to more than 1,000 Ebola contacts being lost to follow-up. Three health facilities were looted and set ablaze, according to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who warned about humanitarian access.
The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Wednesday 11 November that armed violence has now become one of the main obstacles to the Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. An attack the previous week in Cantine-Aloya had killed 66 civilians, including three health workers, and led to three health facilities being looted and set ablaze, according to WHO.
The violence caused more than 1,000 people who had been in contact with patients to be lost to follow-up, while three people who tested positive for Ebola remain missing. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the incidents restrict humanitarian access and disrupt surveillance operations, contact tracing and health teams’ access to communities.
Two weeks before the attack, a nurse had been killed and another health worker seriously injured in Tshopo province during an intervention linked to an Ebola alert. WHO also reported a grenade found near a health zone office, gunfire near a treatment centre, an attempted arson attack and stones thrown at a team responsible for safe and dignified burials.
