DR Congo: More people seeking treatment for Ebola as trust grows
In the town of Bunia in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ituri province – the epicentre of the current Ebola outbreak – community trust appears to be growing.
Medical staff say more people are coming to receive treatment for the deadly haemorrhagic virus, making their care easier.
At least a dozen facilities have been attacked by ordinary people, largely due to fear, misinformation and deep mistrust of outside authorities.
Most of the 1,000 death from Ebola since mid-May have occurred in communities, not in treatment centres.
Dr Job Kkabagambe Tibasima is the deputy supervisor for the Ministry of Health at the Ebola Treatment Centre at the Evangelical Medical Centre in Bunia.
He says this is a positive shift in the relationship between communities and health service providers.
“The patient who comes to the centre receives their treatment properly and leaves without incident, and at the end, they even thank the medical team,” he says.
Despite the growing trust, the Ebola outbreak continues to outpace the response.
More than 2,500 cases have been reported so far, but as insecurity and active conflict continue to limit access to affected areas, it is estimated that the actual number could be more than twice as high.
Although contact tracing now reaches around 80 per cent of identified contacts, teams still cannot reach every community, diagnose every sick person, or deploy response teams wherever they are needed.
Priorities remain reducing transmission in Ituri by strengthening surveillance, safe and dignified burials, clinical management, and community engagement.
At the same time, there is a need to rapidly building response capacity in newly affected provinces before transmission becomes established.
The World Health Organization says this faces technical challenges, but also requires political action towards a ceasefire to improve humanitarian access and allow the urgent scale-up of operations.
It adds that people in DRC cannot face this outbreak alone. They need sustained support from the international community and, above all, they need peace.
