Attacks on health workers and facilities are increasingly hindering efforts to contain an Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that has killed more than 5,400 people, Africa’s top public health agency said Thursday.
Wessam Mankoula of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) told a press briefing that incidents included four armed attacks, 16 assaults on responders and 11 health facilities that were burned or otherwise targeted.
The attacks have become increasingly deadly since late September, he said.
Last week, an attack on the town of Cantine-Aloya in North Kivu province by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an armed group linked to the Islamic State group, killed 66 people, including three health workers, Mankoula said.
More than 1,000 contacts of infected people have been lost to follow-up, and three confirmed Ebola cases remain unaccounted for, he added.
At a separate briefing, World Health Organisation (WHO) experts warned that continuing violence risked “reversing the progress made over the past six months.”
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday that insecurity was now “one of the greatest obstacles” to the Ebola response, restricting humanitarian access, disrupting operations and making it harder to reach communities quickly.
