And… because this provincial area lies in a remote, largely hilly and forested civil war/conflict zone — still highly influenced by very poorly informed / fundamentalist “christian” religious leaders running mega-churches… highly unscientific rumors are often accepted as fact.

Thus, some remote pastors are telling their faithful on Sundays that the outbreak is a hoax, and divine protection is all they need (for a price, of course). So much so, that some young people burned a treatment center down, when they were refused in a request to take a friend’s body for burial. The young person had died of Ebola, and unsafe burials are a prime way that the virus is spread.

Here is the latest, very disturbing news, from AP reports:

…The World Health Organization chief said Friday that the Ebola outbreak in Congo is spreading rapidly and now poses a “very high” risk there, as a lack of medical resources and anger among the population hamper the response in a vulnerable and conflict-ridden region.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the risk of global spread remains low, but that the U.N. health agency was revising upward its assessment of the risk within Congo from its previous categorization of “high….”

Frontline medical staff have struggled with a lack of resources and, in some cases, pushback due to what has been characterized as misinformation or situations where medical policy has clashed with local customs such as burial rites….

On Thursday, an Ebola treatment center in Rwampara was set on fire by youths who were angered when they were blocked from retrieving the body of a friend who apparently had died of Ebola, according to witnesses and police.

Bodies of Ebola victims can be highly contagious, and medical authorities are trying to control burials whenever possible.

Julienne Lusenge, president of Women’s Solidarity for Inclusive Peace and Development, a local aid group, said the population’s anger is mostly due to misinformation.

“We have lived through years and years of conflict and hardship so rumors spread easily,” she said.

She said some churches have told their large congregations that the outbreak is fake and that divine protection makes medical care unnecessary….

Yikes. This could easily begin to approach the 2012-14 outbreak — when over 12,400 ultimately died and over 25,000 were ill. Truly… tragic.

नमस्ते