As Ebola breaks out in northern Democratic Republic of Congo, church and church agencies are moving to help counter the virus, which has left at least 25 people dead and more than 50 infected.
Priests, pastors, and health workers have established active communication with local communities, where they are emphasising measures that can help turn back the virus.
PICTURE: Albin Hillert/WCC
“The church is at the forefront, guiding and educating the local people on prevention and care. We also praying for those who are already sick,” Rev Dr Josue’ Bulambo Lembe-Lembe of the Church of Christ in Congo said in a telephone interview. “We are emphasising high standards of hygiene. We are warning, educating and training the people.”
The DRC government announced the outbreak on 8th May, after two cases were confirmed in Bikoro, a small rural town in Equateur Province in the northwest. On 17th May, two more cases were confirmed in Mbandaka town, a key transport hub on the Congo River with a population of more than one million.
Thousands of people travel between the city, the DRC capital Kinshasa and the city of Brazzaville. This has raised fears that the virus could spread through the river transport.
In Bikoro, the people are accustomed to eating meat from wild animals and that has made many vulnerable.
“We are strongly warning and advising against it,” said Rev Dr Lembe-Lembe.
The Roman Catholic church – which has been strongly involved in the fight against the disease since early May – has feared that some practices within the community constitute a fertile ground for the spread of the virus.
Amid reports that some families had withdrawn relatives from quarantine centres and taken them for church prayers, Bishop Fridolin Ambongo, apostolic administrator of Mbandaka-Bikoro diocese said manipulation of patients and transportation of corpses on motorcycles posed a major threat.
He has also deplored the lack of good road infrastructure in the Equateur Province. According to reports, the road separating Mbandaka and Bikoro, where communities are affected by the epidemic, is impassable.
“When will the population have leaders who commit fully to work to improve living conditions?” queried the bishop in a statement on 30th May.
Ebola haemorrhagic fever spreads through contact with an infected person’s fluids. The virus also spreads from wild animals, such as monkeys and bats, to humans. The current outbreak – the third in the country in the past five years and the seventh since the discovery of the disease in 1976 – is the Zaire Ebola Virus. It has a mortality rate of 60 to 90 per cent.
The World Health Organization has responded through “ring vaccination,” which involves vaccinating and monitoring people around an infected person. The UN body has used an experimental drug to vaccinate nearly 90 per cent of the people at risk, marking the first time an Ebola vaccine is being given.
This article was first published on the World Council of Churches website. Fredrick Nzwili is an independent journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya.
