Ebola patients flee in attacks on Congo health facilities, hobbling response

Ebola patients fled in attacks on health facilities, including two at the weekend, targeting the same hospital that permitted more than two dozen patients to run away in the northeastern province of Ituri, where the first Ebola cases were reported. Dr. Richard Lokodu, medical director of the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, said, "There is denial of the disease within the population, with some members wanting to claim the bodies of suspected and/or confirmed cases."

The World Health Organisation has declared the outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola a public health emergency of international concern. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sunday there had been more than 900 suspected cases in the outbreak so far, including 101 confirmed cases. On Monday, Tedros said there had been 220 suspected deaths in the current Ebola outbreak and that a delay in detecting cases meant responders were now "playing catch-up".

At the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital, 18 Ebola patients fled on Saturday after "unidentified individuals" burned tents erected by Médecins Sans Frontières. Four lab results from those patients have come back - three negative results and one positive result. On Sunday, the hospital came under four waves of attacks by young people mobilised by relatives of a Christian religious leader who died of Ebola. Seven other patients escaped, and Congolese police and soldiers had to mobilise to restore order. A suspected Ebola patient who was in critical condition with haemorrhaging died in the second attack while trying to flee from his bed, according to Lokodu.