Health workers at an Ebola treatment centre in eastern Congo went on strike on Saturday over unpaid bonuses, disrupting patient care at the epicentre of what authorities describe as the fastest-growing outbreak on record, according to reporting by the Associated Press (AP). Confirmed cases in Congo have reached 2,973, including 1,309 deaths, according to government data released Friday.
Doctors, nurses and security staff at the Elikya Ebola Treatment Centre in Bunia, Ituri province, halted work, with around a hundred health workers protesting outside the facility on Saturday, AP reported.
Staff said unpaid bonuses were damaging morale and disrupting patient care, and called on Congolese authorities to settle the arrears. In a statement issued Friday, staff said they had unanimously voted to strike from Saturday until “concrete solutions” were found to resolve two months of unpaid performance bonuses, AP said.
The action follows a similar strike last week by health workers at Bunia General Hospital, the region’s largest medical centre, over unpaid salaries, according to AP’s reporting.
Some staff told AP they had received no payment since starting work at the outbreak’s onset. The World Health Organization says more than 100 healthcare workers have been infected since the outbreak began.
Congo has been battling the outbreak, caused by the rare Bundibugyo virus, since 15 May, AP reported. A total of 766 patients remain in isolation or hospital, while 540 have recovered, according to data from Congo’s Ministry of Health. The eastern province of Ituri accounts for nearly 90 percent of confirmed cases.
According to AP, the outbreak continues to spread faster than health officials can track, despite an expanding response.
A key difficulty is that authorities have yet to identify the outbreak’s patient zero, while displacement caused by armed conflict and mining-related movement has made it hard to trace thousands of people who may have had contact with infected individuals.
The response has also been hampered by a funding gap, attacks on health centres, ongoing conflict in eastern Congo, and mistrust among local communities, AP said.
Efforts have been further complicated by the absence of approved vaccines or treatments for the Bundibugyo virus, unlike the more common Zaire virus, for which a vaccine exists and which was responsible for most of Congo’s previous 16 outbreaks, according to AP’s reporting.
Enrolment in a closely watched study of two potential Ebola treatments has recently begun in Ituri.
The WHO says the global risk of the outbreak spreading beyond Central Africa remains low, AP reported, noting that Ebola spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person rather than through the air, making it far harder to transmit than respiratory viruses.
