DRC: Nurse Killed, Health Worker Wounded in Attack on Ebola Responders
A nurse was killed and a colleague seriously injured in Bafwasende, eastern DRC, while responding to an Ebola alert, the latest in a series of violent attacks on health workers during the country's deadliest-ever Ebola outbreak.
A nurse was killed and a second health worker severely injured on Saturday 25 October when they were attacked while investigating a suspected Ebola case in Bafwasende, Tshopo province, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The assault is the latest in a pattern of hostility toward health responders in the region, where distrust of authorities — fuelled by chronic corruption and misinformation dismissing Ebola as a hoax — has repeatedly disrupted the outbreak response. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on Sunday for healthcare workers to be able to work in dignity and safety. The WHO's regional director for Africa, Dr Mohamed Yakub Janabi, separately warned that misinformation and fear must never fuel violence. Last month, a politician was beaten to death for publicly supporting the Ebola response. The DRC outbreak, which began in May, is now the deadliest Ebola crisis in the country's history, with over 9,800 cases and more than 4,700 deaths. It has spread to four countries, giving it the widest geographic reach of any Ebola outbreak on the continent to date. The Bundibugyo strain driving the crisis has no approved vaccine or specific treatment.
