Health workers battling the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have gone on strike to demand their unpaid wages, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.
The Ebola outbreak in western Congo has gradually spread to remote villages in Equateur province since the first case was identified on June 1, infecting 88 people and killing 36.
Local lab technicians, case management teams and contact tracers blocked access to the Ebola testing lab in the provincial capital city of Mbandaka on Saturday, according to Mory Keita, the Ebola incident manager of the city. ‘WHO.
They were protesting the recent release by the health ministry of their pay scales, which they felt were too low, and the government not paying them since the outbreak began, Keita said. .
“We have in our hands samples taken two days ago which are not being tested”, he lamented. “This means that we are not very effective in the response”, he added.
The DRC’s health minister, Dr Eteni Longodo, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In June, the country marked the end of another Ebola outbreak in the east of the country, the second most severe on record. It had killed more than 2,200 people in the space of two years.
According to the WHO, the strain of the virus responsible for the recent epidemic in Ecuador is genetically distinct from that of the previous epidemic and is believed to be of animal origin.
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