{"id":516495,"date":"2026-07-08T22:01:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T22:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/516495\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T22:01:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T22:01:15","slug":"ebola-workers-volunteers-experience-opposition-in-africa-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/516495\/","title":{"rendered":"Ebola workers, volunteers experience opposition in Africa \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Red Cross volunteers face physical danger from the community while trying to bury bodies.Health workers in Ituri province went on strike over unpaid wages.The Bundibugyo strain of Ebola continues to spread.<\/p>\n

Volunteers, health professionals and workers have flocked to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to provide aid in the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak that began in May. But they haven\u2019t all been received with open arms.<\/p>\n

According to a Red Cross worker interviewed by The New York Times<\/a>, they are risking their lives by volunteering in Congo, where there are more than 1,600 confirmed cases and 521 confirmed deaths reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/a> as of July 5. <\/p>\n

The risk the worker referred to isn\u2019t the risk of exposure.<\/p>\n

\"\"A health worker speaks to people at the evangelical Medical Center, in Bunia, eastern Congo, Friday, July 3, 2026, where Ebola clinical trials are scheduled to take place. | Dirole Lotsima Dieudonne, Associated Press Fleeing a funeral<\/p>\n

Per The Times, the worker, Ramazani Bokwandela, described running away from an Ebola victim\u2019s funeral as villagers chased and beat four of his fellow volunteers, leaving them hospitalized.<\/p>\n

Bokwandela and his co-workers were trying to bury the body when the fight broke out. The Congolese mourners associated the Red Cross workers with Ebola and accused them of bringing the disease to the town, the article said.<\/p>\n

After escaping the funeral, Bokwandela used a snail shell to \u201c(slice) off the sleeves of his Red Cross tunic,\u201d and then disguised himself as a farmer. <\/p>\n

The Times quoted Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, the head of the World Health Organization\u2019s emergency response unit, who called the burying of the bodies \u201cone of the riskiest jobs in the entire response.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Bokwandela keeps going back to work, despite the adversity. \u201cI\u2019m doing it for myself, my family and my community,\u201d he said, per The Times.<\/p>\n

\"\"A protester is arrested by anti-riot police during a demonstration against a proposed Ebola quarantine center to be established by the United States at Laikipia Air Base in Nanyuki, Kenya, Tuesday, June 9, 2026. | Brian Inganga, Associated Press Going on strike<\/p>\n

There are more obstacles for the workers in Congo besides being chased out of funerals.<\/p>\n

Associated Press<\/a> reported Wednesday that some frontline workers in Ituri province, which in Congo has the most Ebola cases, are on strike because they haven\u2019t been paid since the outbreak started. \u201cThey also alleged they were working with limited gear, and were being treated unfairly by authorities as well as response teams,\u201d AP reported. <\/p>\n

The workers sent \u201can official notice to national and provincial authorities over the weekend,\u201d letting them know a strike would begin if they weren\u2019t paid within 24 hours, the article said. A protest also took place on Monday. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are doing everything we can to make the public understand how dangerous this disease is. I came here to save people\u2019s lives, but this is how I am being thanked. We are working day and night without being paid,\u201d AP quoted Dr. Ghislain Maneba, an epidemiologist and community investigator in the Rwampara health zone.<\/p>\n

Officials said the disease \u201ccontinues to spread faster than the response,\u201d according to the article.<\/p>\n

\"\"Medical staff carry an Ebola patient to a treatment center in Rwampara, Congo, Thursday, May 21, 2026. | Moses Sawasawa, Associated Press <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Red Cross volunteers face physical danger from the community while trying to bury bodies.Health workers in Ituri province…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[134,111,16474,139,69],"class_list":["post-516495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-news-feed-national","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=516495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}