A report from the international humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Thursday revealed that, despite “hundreds of millions of dollars” from global aid groups being sent to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to fight the ongoing Ebola outbreak there, the situation on the ground remains destitute.
While the report did not explicitly identify corruption as the reason for what appears to be an insufficient impact by global funding on the health situation in DRC, it observed bizarre situations such as health centers apparently lacking basic sanitary supplies, ambulances with no gasoline to move, and official contact tracing teams that do not appear to actually exist, leaving unanswered who is receiving those salaries. Without proper protective gear, cleaning supplies to maintain health facilities, and the ability to monitor those exposed to the disease, Congolese health workers are fighting a losing battle against the illness.
The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) announced a public health emergency in the eastern DRC in May, though acknowledging that the outbreak of Ebola there may have begun months prior, potentially as early as in January. As of this week, health officials have documented over 11,000 cases of Ebola tied to the current outbreak and over 5,400 deaths, a fatality rate of about 50 percent.
Addressing the Ebola crisis, now the second-largest outbreak recorded in modern history, has proven difficult for a number of complicated factors in the region. The strain of Ebola circulating in eastern DRC, Bundibugyo, is considered a less common strain and one for which no vaccine or specific treatment outside of sustaining a patient through an infection currently exists. Independent of Ebola, the Ituri and North Kivu provinces where the virus is believed to be infecting the most people are notorious for armed militant warfare, primarily conflict among gangs over controlling “artisanal” mining centers and widespread violence by the Islamic State affiliate Allied Democratic Forces (ADF).
MSF acknowledged the intrinsic difficulties with addressing any health emergencies in DRC, but nonetheless expressed alarm at how little international resources appear to be improving the situation.
“Despite the considerable resources mobilized for the response, too little is reaching patients, frontline workers, and communities,” MSF said. “Hundreds of millions of dollars have been disbursed by the international community, yet critical shortcomings in essential aspects of the response persist, undermining efforts to halt the outbreak and save lives.”
The organization, which has operatives on the ground aiding the Ebola response effort, listed a variety of problems with health care in eastern DRC, including:
Untrained and unpaid response personnel, some of whom have gone on strike; vehicles and ambulances without fuel; surveillance teams that exist on paper but are nowhere to be seen on the ground; community workers without phones or mobile data to share alerts; and health care staff left without the supplies or technical support needed to handle suspected cases.
“Our teams are often left speechless by the dysfunction they witness in many areas. Six months into the response, this situation is simply unacceptable,” MSF International President Javid Abdelmoneim said.
