The World Health Organization said that the real number of Ebola virus infections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is likely to be at least double the officially announced toll, at a time when doctors and health workers in the epicenter of the outbreak threatened to go on strike in protest against the non-payment of their salaries. The organization confirmed that at least 1,963 infections were recorded, of which at least 719 people died.
The Executive Director of the Health Emergencies Program at the World Health Organization, Chikwe Ihekweazu, said after his visit to the region that most of the deaths occurred within the family environment and not in medical centers. “We believe, according to our studies and models, that the size of the outbreak is at least two to four times the number of cases we are monitoring,” Ihekweazo added in statements to reporters in Geneva yesterday.
Threatening health personnel to go on strike
Efforts to contain the outbreak are facing increasing challenges, after doctors and health workers in the affected areas threatened to go on strike to protest the non-payment of their salaries.
At the Ebola treatment center in Rwambara, one of the most affected areas, health workers burned rubber tires in a protest last Monday and temporarily closed access roads, according to what Agence France-Presse reported.
The center is located in Ituri Province, the epicenter of the outbreak, where at least 384 confirmed cases have been recorded, including 89 deaths. The National Institute of Public Health in the Democratic Republic of the Congo said that health workers accounted for a large number of Ebola infections, including 112 cases of transmission and 35 deaths, as of last Sunday.
Agence France-Presse quoted one of the doctors as saying: “Since May 15, we have been treating Ebola patients without pay. We continue to treat them by virtue of our department, but we work in very difficult conditions.” Another doctor at the center, Jeremy Bataga, said, “Some colleagues are frustrated, but we continue to perform our mission out of professional conscience.”
The doctors explained that after a “48-hour deadline” to pay their salaries and bonuses, they would go on a “comprehensive strike,” meaning they would stop working without a minimum level of service until changes occurred. One health worker told the Associated Press, “We don’t know how it is possible that we have not been paid for two months. We don’t want to give up work.”
For his part, Congolese Health Minister Samuel Roger Kamba acknowledged the existence of a “delay in payments,” which he attributed to an “organizational problem.” He said during a visit to Ituri last week that the government was checking the list of those working to contain the outbreak, after names not related to work were included on the payroll, according to the Associated Press.
He added, “We have to ensure that these payments reach those who are entitled to them… We faced some challenges, especially changes in lists, which led to complaints from people saying that they are not receiving their wages even though they are working. We have the means to address this.”
On May 15, the Democratic Republic of the Congo announced the outbreak of the seventeenth wave of the Ebola epidemic. The current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, for which there is no vaccine or treatment. International partners and African countries mobilized $1.5 billion to support the health response in the Democratic Republic of Congo and finance medical infrastructure.