A top World Health Organization official announced Friday that 75 healthcare workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been infected with Ebola since the current outbreak began, and 17 of those workers have died from the disease.
The virus is believed to have been spreading for months before Congolese officials formally declared the outbreak on May 15, leaving many medical workers unknowingly exposed long before they could take precautions. Even now that the outbreak is known, health officials report that basic protective equipment such as gloves and masks is in short supply.
WHO emergency director Marie Roseline Belizaire addressed reporters via video link from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, describing the toll on an already strained healthcare system. “It is a really high price that the system, the healthcare system, is paying, because we don’t have enough of healthcare workers in DRC,” she said.
WHO data shows that Congo has one of the lowest ratios of healthcare workers to population in the world, with roughly 11 workers for every 10,000 people. Belizaire noted that China and Uganda are dispatching medical teams to the country to help address the shortage.
The WHO is also providing psychological support to some medical workers who have become too frightened to treat Ebola patients after watching colleagues become sick and die. Belizaire described the emotional weight of hearing their stories firsthand: “When they are explaining to you how they live it, how they were infected … (it) can break your heart.”
