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Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - BUNIA — Doctors operating on the front lines of the fight against Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo , already grappling with shortages of basic supplies,are now having to deal with attacks on their facilities and fleeing patients as the virus spreads rapidly.
Police in the east of DR Congo fired shots in the air after angry crowds attempted to reclaim the bodies of loved ones who had died at an Ebola treatment center in Mongwalu, according to local journalists.
Sunday's unrest continued throughout the day, the reporters said.
The treatment center, in a hospital compound, was the same place that was targeted overnight on Friday into Saturday, when an isolation tent was set ablaze.
At least three such incidents have occurred in the northeastern province of Ituri where the first Ebola cases were reported, including two at the weekend targeting the same hospital that permitted more than two dozen patients to run away.
The attacks recall the widespread violence targeting health facilities during a 2018-2020 outbreak in eastern Congo that killed more than 25 health workers.
Some were perpetrated by civilians who were angry about not being able to bury their loved ones or were convinced that the outbreak was a hoax. The influx of money and manpower into an area that had felt neglected during decades of conflict and humanitarian crisis has spurred local suspicions about the real motives for the sudden spike of interest.
A similar dynamic seems to be playing out now, said Dr Richard Lokodu, medical director of the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital in Mongbwalu, which came under attack first on Saturday and again on Sunday.
According toLokudu, Sunday's attackers demanded the bodies of two people be given to their families.
He told the Associated Press news agency that the hospital was on "general alert".
One of the dead was a Catholic shepherd, who was a "well-known local figure — a religious leader", a hospital official told AFP news agency.
"There is denial of the disease within the population, with some members wanting to claim the bodies of suspected and/or confirmed cases," Lokudu said.
The World Health Organization has declared the outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, the third-largest such outbreak on record, a public health emergency of international concern.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sunday there had been more than 900 suspected cases in the outbreak so far, including 101 confirmed cases.
On Monday, Tedros said there had been 220 suspected deaths in the current Ebola outbreak and that a delay in detecting cases meant responders were now "playing catch-up".
At the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, 18 Ebola patients fled on Saturday after "unidentified individuals" burned tents, erected by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, where patients were being isolated, Lokodu said.
On Thursday, crowds set fire to isolation tents in hospital in Rwampara, a town 85km south-east of Mongwalu where cases are also concentrated , after they were prevented from taking the body of a man thought to have died from Ebola, away for burial.
Red Cross volunteers are carrying out safe burials under police protection to stop the virus spreading.
Three volunteers have also died from suspected Ebola likely caught while managing dead bodies, according to the organisation.
This comes as heath ministers from DR Congo and neighbouring Uganda and South Sudan over the weekend finalized their cross-border co-ordination in response to the outbreak, alongside the head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
On Monday, Uganda confirmed two new cases, both health workers, bringing its total infections to seven, with one death being recorded. The patients are receiving treatment and people they have been in contact with are being traced, the health ministry said.
Africa CDC warned that other countries on the continent including Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia are at risk from an outbreak.
Speaking to BBC, Africa CDC's director-general Dr Jean Kaseya said their plan looks at how to avoid waste, how to isolate and manage cases, and how to ensure people have "dignified funerals".
Kaseya also said DR Congo, Uganda and South Sudan, agreed on a $319m (£236m) budget to stop the outbreak from spreading.
On where the money will come from, Kaseya said, so far, 10% had been secured by the affected countries.
On Monday, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa pledged an initial $5m as an act of solidarity.
"This contribution is a demonstration of our confidence in Africa CDC as the public health agency of our continent," he said during a briefing on the outbreak, as he encouraged other African states to join efforts.
"Africa is no longer waiting passively for others to act and to come to its assistance, waiting helplessly," he explained.
Calling on the international community to also support the plan, Ramaphosa said: "The world is safer when Africa is safer. Delayed response and support today will result in much higher human social and economic costs tomorrow."
Kaseya said that African businessmen would be meeting in Lagos on 29 May to "raise additional funds", while international partners such as the US, UK, European Union and World Bank are also "committing funds".
Ten days into the declaration of an outbreak, World Health Organization (WHO) chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said responders are "playing catch-up" after the initial delay in detecting cases.
Africa CDC declared an Ebola outbreak in DR Congo's Ituri province on 15 May. It is the country's 17th Ebola outbreak.
"We are urgently scaling up operations, but at the moment the epidemic is outpacing us," Tedros said on Monday, adding that he will be travelling to DR Congo the following day.
The WHO declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
The outbreak is caused by the rare Bundibugyo species of Ebola, which had not been seen for over a decade.
There are currently no vaccines or medications that target Bundibugyo, which makes it harder to treat.
Last week, the WHO said it could take up to nine months for a vaccine to be ready.
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