Residents burn an Ebola treatment center in Congo as anger grows over the outbreak
apnews.com
People have set fire to an Ebola treatment center in one of the towns at the heart of the outbreak in eastern Congo as fear and anger grows over a health crisis authorities and aid agencies are struggling to contain.

People set fire to an Ebola treatment center in a town at the heart of the outbreak in eastern Congo on Thursday after being stopped from retrieving the body of a local man, a witness and a senior police officer said, as fear and anger grow over a health crisis that doctors are struggling to contain.

The arson attack in Rwampara reflects the challenges of health workers trying to curb a rare Ebola virus by using stringent measures that might clash with local customs, such as burial rites. The disease has been spreading for weeks in a region lacking in health facilities and where armed conflict has displaced many people.

The dangerous work of burying suspected victims is being managed wherever possible by authorities because the bodies of those who die from Ebola can be highly contagious and lead to further spread when people prepare bodies for burial and gather for funerals.

That policy can be extremely unpopular with victims’ families and friends, who aren’t given the chance to bury their loved ones.

  • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.caEnglish
    6·
    8 hours ago

    I was in this region in the 90s at the height of HIV working with NIH and CDC.

    None of this is surprising. There is a very common belief in witchcraft and a distrust of foreigners explaining viral transmission. People will avoid doctors and hospitals and seek churches first and local healers who claim to cure everything with herbs. It’s where parts of US are heading.

    For HIV, we did not anticipate that Africans in some regions have sex differently. In that culture, they practice vaginal drying prior to penetration, which led to a very high HIV transmission rate between men and women. Nothing we did to educate likely made any difference.

      • Frank Exchange of Views@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        5 hours ago

        I can answer the 2nd, but also curious about the first.

        HIV transmits easiest through blood, so if two people both bleed during intercourse, that gives a much higher transmission rate.

        Same reason why it has a higher transmission rate among gay men.

        Edit: did some extra research, its not just because of blood, also other fluids make transmission easier through thin rectal tissue. So the gayen part doesn’t really apply