ReutersA six-year-old Ebola patient, who Congolese authorities were searching for after armed men stormed the hospital where she was being treated, has been found and is “doing well”, a local health official has told the BBC.
On Wednesday, Dr Lubambo Maboko Gaston said that a girl and her mother had been taken by “very angry” men from a hospital in the eastern city of Butembo, two days previously.
It is unclear whether the men were known to the child, but suspicion and fear surrounding Ebola treatment centres have been rife during the current outbreak.
On Friday, Gaston said the child and mother had turned up at an Ebola treatment centre roughly 18km (11 miles) from Butembo.
Ebola treatment facilities have come under attack multiple times during the ongoing outbreak, in which more than 230 deaths and 890 cases have been confirmed.
Last month, police in the town of Mongbwalu fired shots in the air after angry crowds attempted to reclaim the bodies of loved ones who had died at a health facility.
Days before, crowds set fire to isolation tents in hospital in Rwampara – a town 85km (53 miles) south-east of Mongbwalu – after they were prevented from taking the body of a man thought to have died from Ebola.
The body of an Ebola victim is highly infectious and can lead to the virus spreading further when prepared for burial. Ensuring that burials are carried out safely is a key concern for health official trying to tackle the outbreak.
“People are not properly informed or sensitised about what is happening. For a certain segment of the population, especially in remote areas, Ebola is an invention by outsiders – it does not exist,” local politician Luc Malembe told the BBC last month.
“They believe it is the NGOs and hospitals creating this to make money, and this is tragic.”
On Friday, a World Health Organisation (WHO) official said the Ebola outbreak in eastern DR Congo was still “evolving so fast”.
Marie-Roseline Belizaire, WHO Africa’s emergencies chief, was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying “the outbreak is serious” but that she had “seen a response that is growing stronger every day”.
At a briefing, she also said 75 health workers had caught Ebola during the outbreak and, of these cases, 17 had died.
The outbreak was declared on May 15, though transmission had been going undetected for some time.
The surge in cases has been caused by a rare species of Ebola known as Bundibugyo. There is currently no vaccine for this species and the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said it could take months for a jab to be ready.
Anadolu via Getty ImagesThe current Ebola outbreak has the potential to be one of the largest ever, the head of Africa’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said on Tuesday, echoing a similar projection made earlier this month by the US CDC.
Uganda, which shares a border with DR Congo, has reported 19 confirmed cases of the virus, including two deaths.
However, it has not reported any new cases since 5 June, the WHO has said.
In DR Congo, the health ministry says it has stepped up surveillance systems, contact tracing and treatment infrastructure, with dedicated centres in several affected towns.
The WHO has pledged $3.9m (£2.9m) to tackling the outbreak, while Africa CDC has announced a $319m budget.
Cases are currently concentrated in the provinces of Ituri, South Kivu and North Kivu, where the six-year-old girl was taken from the hospital on Monday.
Ituri remains the main centre of transmission, accounting for more than 90% of confirmed infections.
The WHO has warned that conflict in eastern DR Congo is making it more difficult to tackle the Ebola outbreak. The M23 rebel group is in control of large parts of both North and South Kivu.
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