The job action comes as the country’s worsening outbreak strains an already overburdened health system.
BUNIA, Congo (AP) — Health workers at an Ebola treatment center in eastern Congo went on strike Saturday over pay issues, disrupting care for patients at the epicenter of the country’s fast-growing outbreak.
Number of confirmed Ebola cases in Congo has reached 2,973, including 1,309 deaths, according to government data released Friday in what authorities say is the fastest-growing outbreak in history.
Activities at the Elikya Ebola Treatment Center in Bunia, Ituri province, were largely paralyzed as doctors, nurses and security staff stopped work.
About a hundred health workers protested outside the treatment center on Saturday. They said the unpaid gratuities were damaging morale and disrupting patient care, and called on the Congolese authorities to clear the arrears so they could resume their work.
In a statement issued on Friday, staff said they had voted unanimously to strike from Saturday until “concrete solutions” were found to resolve “two months of unpaid performance bonuses”.
Last week, health workers at the Bunia General Hospital, the largest medical center in the region, went on strike for unpaid wages. Some told The Associated Press that they have not been paid since they started working at the start of the outbreak.
The World Health Organization says more than 100 health care workers have been infected since the outbreak began.
The central African nation has been battling the rare Ebola outbreak Bundibugyo virus since May 15. A total of 766 patients remain in isolation or in hospitals, while 540 have recovered so far, according to data from Congo’s Ministry of Health.
The eastern province of Ituri accounts for nearly 90% of confirmed cases.
The spread continues to spread faster than health officials can trace despite an extended reaction.
A major challenge is that the health authorities have yet to identify patient zero of the outbreakwhile displacement from armed conflict and mining-related movements have made it difficult to trace the thousands who have come into contact with infected individuals.
The response is being hampered by a funding gap, attacks on health centres, an ongoing conflict in eastern Congo and mistrust among local communities.
Response efforts have also been challenged by the lack of vaccines or approved 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 last 16. disease outbreaks.
Registration in a long-awaited study of two potential Ebola treatments recently launched in Ituri.
The WHO says the global risk of the epidemic spreading outside Central Africa is low, noting that Ebola is spread through direct contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids rather than through the air, making it much more difficult to spread than respiratory viruses.
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By PROSPER HERI NGORORA and CONSTANT SAME LOVERS Associated Press
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