Congo-Kinshasa: Global Nursing Head Flags Dangers of Misinformation After Killing of Congo Ebola Nurse
Geneva — The International Council of Nurses (ICN) head has warned of the lethal dangers that misinformation poses to the nursing profession following the killing of a nurse in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), who was responding to an Ebola case.
ICN chief executive Howard Catton said the “tragic news” was a reminder that prevalent misinformation was particularly dangerous for healthcare staff after young men armed with machetes killed the nurse.
“Health misinformation and the breakdown of trust in science is now a deadly risk for nurses and health workers,” Catton posted on the media platform X on Oct. 29.
The UN’s Ebola coordinator and the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Oct. 29 deplored the killing of the nurse working to fight the disease in the DRC four days earlier.
In an interview with AllAfrica, Catton also warned that community health workers often supplant nurses and may be seen as an easy, cheap substitute for a skilled nursing workforce in parts of Africa.
“There is both the migration of registered nurses from the continent of Africa and unemployment of nurses in Africa,” said Catton.
“So, as we see this growth in community health workers, we also know that registered nurses continue to leave Africa for high-income countries in Europe or North America.”
At the same time, many nurses on the continent remain unemployed.
Catton cited UN figures showing Africa’s health workforce grew to 5.72 million in 2024, up from 4.3 million in 2018, noting that such progress is not keeping pace with demand.
ONLY 46 PERCENT OF WORKFORCE NEEDS
“The African region currently has only 46 percent of the health workers it needs,” said the head of the international nursing group.
Catton visited African countries last year, and some leaders said what is happening is making it harder for them to improve their healthcare systems.
“To us, this is starting to feel like a form of neo-colonialism because we’re having valuable resources which are being taken; we’re not being adequately compensated for them,” said the nursing head, conveying the sentiment some African leaders expressed to him.
The WHO’s Africa 2026 report says an estimated 943,000 trained health workers across the African region were unemployed in 2024.
That is, as the continent faces severe staffing shortages and meets only 46 per cent of its overall health workforce needs.
“We are training more health workers than ever before, yet too many remain unemployed while millions go without care,” said Dr Mohamed Yakub Janabi, the WHO regional director for Africa.
“Without bold investment and coordinated reform to plan, train and retain health workers, progress toward universal health coverage will remain out of reach,” said Dr Janabi, speaking in Ghana in May.
The WHO estimates a global shortage of at least ten million healthcare workers by 2030, and some organizations project an even larger shortfall, writes Pooja Kumar, a global leader at the McKinsey Health Institute.
She notes, though, that the global healthcare workforce shortage is not evenly distributed.
“For example,” Pooja says, “Africa has 17 percent of the world’s population but accounts for 52 percent of the global shortage.”
By Allafrica
