{"id":461991,"date":"2026-05-22T16:23:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T16:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/461991\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T16:23:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T16:23:08","slug":"ebola-misinformation-and-community-tensions-in-drc-prompts-aid-volunteer-action-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/461991\/","title":{"rendered":"Ebola misinformation and community tensions in DRC prompts aid volunteer action \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Volunteers are going door-to-door \u200cto combat misinformation about Ebola <\/a>in the area at the centre of the outbreak \u200cin the Democratic Republic of the Congo<\/a> (DRC), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red \u200bCrescent Societies (IFRC) said on Friday.<\/p>\n

The Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, for which there is no approved vaccine or treatment, was declared an emergency of international concern by the World Health \u200bOrganisation<\/a> (WHO) on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The IFRC said it was working with communities in Mongbwalu, at the heart \u2060of the outbreak, to explain how people can protect themselves and \u200cwhen \u200cto \u200bseek care.<\/p>\n

\u201cCommunity reactions remain mixed, for some people the outbreak is very real and they are \u2060taking information on how \u200bto protect themselves,\u201d Gabriela Arenas, the regional \u200boperations co-ordinator for the IFRC Africa Region, told reporters via video-link \u200cfrom Nairobi.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor others, there\u2019s still suspicion \u200band misinformation claiming that Ebola is fabricated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tensions have surfaced locally. Protesters \u2060set fire to tents for \u2060Ebola patients \u200bafter Congolese authorities refused to give them the dead body of a local footballer suspected to have died in the outbreak. They wanted to bury him themselves and his family did not agree that Ebola had killed him. The episode demonstrated why building trust in communities is so important, Arenas said.<\/p>\n

Bodies of Ebola \u200cvictims are highly infectious \u2060after death, and unsafe burials \u2013 where family members handle the body without proper protective equipment \u2013 are a leading driver of transmission. \u201cEbola \u200coutbreaks start and end between communities, and this is why the local engagement remains \u200bso central to the response,\u201d Arenas said, adding \u200bthat rumours stem from fear and a lack of trusted information.<\/p>\n

The WHO regional director for Africa said one case could spread the virus beyond the DRC and Uganda.<\/p>\n

Ebola is an often-fatal virus \u2060that causes fever, body aches, vomiting and \u2060diarrhoea. It spreads \u200bthrough direct contact with the bodily fluids of infected people, contaminated materials or people who have died from the disease.<\/p>\n

\"MedicalMedical staff wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) carry disinfectant at the hospital in Rwampara in DRC. Photograph: Seros Muyisa\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

The outbreak has resulted in \u200b160 suspected deaths out of 670 suspected cases, and 61 of the cases have been confirmed, according to DRC health ministry data published on Thursday. Two cases have also been confirmed in neighbouring Uganda.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be a big \u200bmistake to underestimate it, especially with a virus with this strain, Bundibugyo, [for] which we don\u2019t have the vaccine,\u201d Mohamed Yakub \u2060Janabi said in an interview at WHO headquarters in Geneva.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0WHO head \u2018deeply concerned\u2019 by scale of Ebola outbreak as deaths riseOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I would really encourage \u200ceveryone, \u200clet\u2019s \u200bhelp each other, we can bring this thing into control,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He added that the outbreak of Ebola in the DRC has had relatively \u2060little global attention compared with this \u200bmonth\u2019s hantavirus outbreak, which affected cruise ship passengers \u200bfrom 23 countries including major powers.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just need one contact case to put all of us \u200cat risk, so my wish and prayer \u200bis that we should give [Ebola] the attention it deserves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Janabi declined to comment on the expected duration and scale of the outbreak. The \u201chyperdynamic movement of the people\u201d made it hard to gauge the situation, he said, adding that efforts to scale up testing, infection \u200cprevention measures and community \u2060engagement were under way.<\/p>\n

The dispute over the victim\u2019s body that led to the burning of Ebola treatment tents pointed to the importance of building trust, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are trying \u200cto fight both frontiers,\u201d he said, referring to the virus itself and misinformation about the illness circulating within the \u200blocal population.<\/p>\n

Another challenge was that epidemiologists have yet to find the \u200binitial person infected, he added, saying this was important for identifying and isolating the initial web of contacts. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Volunteers are going door-to-door \u200cto combat misinformation about Ebola in the area at the centre of the outbreak…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[8044,196728,103,61,60],"class_list":["post-461991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo","tag-ebola-disease","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}