In light of news that healthcare workers with the Red Cross planned to disinfect a local school infected with Ebola, crowds of central Guinean residents attacked an Ebola facility and healthcare workers, government officials reported Saturday, Feb. 14. Though the healthcare workers continue to try to fight and contain the disease, local uprisings have interfered greatly with their work in the field. And government officials are saying that the counterproductive actions of locals are forcefully giving the Ebola virus the upper hand.
The incident which occurred on Friday, Feb. 13, in the town of Faranah, Guinea involved dozens of rioters as news of the worsening outbreak arrived last week. Jeopardizing the Guinean government's plans to halt the disease by early March, the World Health Organization announced last week that the number of new cases in Guinea nearly doubled, jumping to 64.
Enraged residents sought out to attack healthcare workers by storming an Ebola transit center and set a vehicle on fire, which belonged to the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres. Healthcare officials were forced to flee, as well as a local Red Cross burial team which was targeted for their efforts in trying to dispose of infected bodies.
"All this agitation aims to discourage our partners and to give the virus the upper hand" spokesman for the Guinean government's campaign against ebola, Fodé Tass Sylla says. "We won't accept that."
"Everyone must understand that the fight we are leading requires the engagement of all citizens."
With a mortality rate greater than 70% for the current ebola outbreak, more than 2,000 individuals have died out of the reported 3,000 cases in Guinea. Along with Sierra Leone and Liberia, the nation of Guinea is one of the three nations most devastated by the disease, and locals have been rather outspoken about the efforts to stop the virus.
Officials with health organizations say that domestic disturbances have greatly affected their ability to combat the disease, though their efforts remain valiant. In fact, spokespersons with the Red Cross say that teams in Guinea have been attacked on average 10 times a month since the onset of the outbreak and they warn that continued violence will only hamper efforts to contain the disease.
