Fear and suspicion hinder Congo medics in Ebola battle

With more than twice as many Ebolaoutbreaks as any other country since the virus was discovered in1976, Congolese are familiar with its destructive power, yetfear and suspicion of medical authorities are still hinderingefforts at containment.

Health officials say they are working hard to get outaccurate information about the deadly hemorrhagic fever but are facing significant mistrust in a part of Africa where many place morefaith in clerics in white collars than doctors in white coats.

A doctor and a nursing sister were threatened by localsafter they were accused of bringing the disease to theircommunities, while people in one town prevented medics fromtesting the body of someone suspected to have died from Ebola,officials said.

"The information campaign is being put in place but is stillinsufficient," Doctors Without Borders (Mdecins Sans Frontires)emergency medicalcoordinator Jean-Clement Cabrol told reporters in Geneva onThursday.

"Religious and traditional leaders in communities are notbeing used enough," he said.

Congo's government, the World Health Organization (WHO) andaid agencies are racing to contain what could be the mostdangerous of Congo's nine epidemics sinceit was discovered by northern Congo's eponymous river fourdecades ago.

• Congo Ebola outbreak maps are riddled with errors. Volunteers are racing to fix them, CBC Radio's The Current

"Our grandparents lived a long time here in Mbandaka andthey never experienced this," said a merchant named Yvonne."This is sorcery."

Praying withEbola patient

In one of the more alarming developments in the outbreak todate, family members of two Ebola patients removed them from anisolation ward in Mbandaka on Monday night, walking them out ofthe hospital before putting them on the back of motorcycles.

One was taken to a nearby evangelical church, according tohealth officials and a source at the church, where sheby nowvomiting and unable to walk joined 19 other people for prayersin a cramped tin-roofed building.

She returned to hospital before succumbing to the illnessthe next night. The other patient was taken home, where he diedhours later, leaving health officials scrambling to locate theircontacts across the city of 1.5 million people.

A witness at the church, who declined to be named, said thewoman came to testify that God had cured her of her illness.

"We prayed for her," he said, shortly before she died.Health officials later turned up at the church to vaccinateseveral people who had been in contact with her.

Security guards called impractical

When Ebola hit the West African countries of Guinea, Liberiaand Sierra Leone in 2013 and 2014, killing more than 11,000people, suspicion of health workers in their spacesuit-likeprotective gear also prompted patients to flee, helpingaccelerate the disease's spread.

Health workers find themselves having to strike a delicatebalance: restricting Ebola patients' movements but withoutantagonizing communities whose cooperation is vital.

It would be impractical and counter-productive to asksecurity guards, who are not equipped with protective gear, toforcibly restrain patients, said Nahid Bhadelia, medicaldirector of the special pathogens unit at Boston UniversityMedical Center, who worked in an Ebola treatment unit in SierraLeone during its 2014-2016 outbreak.

"By doing something violent you'd be creating greaterdistrust."

She said officials should focus on assuaging fear, includingbringing social workers and spiritual leaders to hospitals tospeak to patients across a protective barrier.

Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres), which runs the treatment centre in the Wangata districtof Mbandaka that the patients fled, said holding patientsagainst their will would only fuel mistrust of health workers.

"Forced hospitalization is not the solution to thisepidemic. Patient adherence is paramount," MSF said in astatement. "The quicker patients are admitted, the greater theirchance of survival and of limiting the spread of Ebola."