Armed men stormed a hospital in the eastern city of Butembo, taking a six-year-old Ebola patient and her mother from the ward. Two days later, the child turned up at an Ebola treatment centre roughly 18km (11 miles) away, where a local health official said she was “doing well”.
Dr Lubambo Maboko Gaston told the BBC the girl and her mother had been taken by “very angry” men on Monday. 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’s condition was “currently considered stable”.
“A six-year-old Ebola patient abducted from a DR Congo hospital has been found and is stable, amid attacks on health facilities.”
Health facilities have come under attack multiple times during the ongoing outbreak, which has confirmed more than 230 deaths and 890 cases. 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 a hospital in Rwampara – 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 safe burials is a key concern for health officials. “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”. 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 WHO has said it could take months for a jab to be ready.