BUNIA, Congo — Mourners gathered Friday to bury a 6-month-old girl who died from Ebola earlier in the week, the third child to die at an orphanage in eastern Congo as authorities have struggled to contain the latest outbreak.
Carrying a cross, people stood at a distance as the small coffin was lowered into the ground by masked and gloved health workers, and a Catholic priest prayed over her body.
“It’s a feeling of sadness because we have lost one of our own, a daughter of the church,” said Father Innocent Ndogo.
“As we have always said, ‘The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.’”
Ituri, the region at the center of the Ebola outbreak, has reported more than 90% of the cases. The response has been complicated by residents clashing with healthcare professionals over disrupted burials and the response to the outbreak, which has been militarized at times.
The impersonal nature of safe burial practices and the severity of the epidemic were evident Friday as only healthcare workers in protective gear were allowed to handle the coffin and the burial.
Bundibugyo, the type of Ebola in this outbreak, has no approved treatment or vaccine, and even some health workers have said they don’t have the masks, gloves and other gear to protect themselves.
During a visit to Bunia on Friday, Congolese Health Minister Roger Kamba said there were now 933 confirmed cases and 245 deaths from the current outbreak. Kamba also said that all health centers will be free in Ituri and that healthcare workers bonuses will be doubled.
There are 35,000 suspected potential contacts, Africa’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.
Despite the rapid spread of the outbreak, it is still not nearly as deadly as a 2014 Ebola crisis that killed more than 11,000.
Because of the absence of approved vaccines or treatments, the Bundibugyo strain was not tested for in the early days. This lack of testing is one of the reasons the outbreak has spread to such an extent. The more common Zaire virus, for which there is a vaccine, was responsible for most of Congo’s past 16 outbreaks of the disease.
Alex Lock, a communications officer at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, asked people to resist feeling indifferent.
“She was a baby. She had her whole life ahead of her. Unfortunately, she was taken by the disease, a disease that, as you know, is transmitted from one person to another,” Lock said.
Although the outbreak is concentrated in Ituri, cases have also been recorded in the North Kivu and South Kivu provinces and have spread across the border to Uganda, where 19 confirmed cases have been reported and two people have died.
Kabumba and Mcmakin write for the Associated Press and reported from Bunia and Dakar, Senegal, respectively.
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