By RFPosted on 01-09-2019Modified on 01-09-2019 at 02:35

The Secretary-General of the United Nations is expected this Sunday, September 1 in Beni. In particular, he plans to go to Mangina, where the Ebola epidemic, which has hit eastern DRC for a year, is part of. This includes visiting an Ebola treatment center and meeting with community leaders. Because in Beni as elsewhere, fierce resistance is opposed to health teams engaged in the fight against the virus. Reportage.

This Sunday, the Secretary General of the United Nations will be in this city Beni, the epicenter of the Ebola epidemic. He must visit the Ebola Treatment Center (CTE) in Mangina, the first outbreak of the epidemic at the end of July 2018. Thirteen months later, the death toll is 2015 deaths for 3017 cases, mainly in the province of North Kivu. More than 200,000 people have already received a preventive virus against Ebola in eastern DRC. The authorities see it as one of the best bulwarks against the spread of the epidemic. This is the second most serious epidemic in history, after 11,000 deaths in West Africa in 2014.

But in Beni as elsewhere, part of the population continues to deny the disease, reject vaccination or refuse to hospitalize their relatives with special transit designed specifically to accommodate suspected cases. This resistance is one of the main obstacles to the eradication of the disease.

→ Read also: One year of Ebola in the DRC: the challenges of a controversial response

Denial kills in Beni

At the southern exit of Beni, the neighborhood of Mabolio, where the first case appeared about a month ago, is one of those neighborhoods where resistance remains strong, and cases are increasing.

A family gathered in the yard of a plot. It's a day of mourning in Mabolio. Last Friday here, Papa Gilles, 60 years old, has died, recluse at home. He refused to be treated, as his daughter says. " We saw several doctors and authorities coming to see him and tell him to go to the health center. But he always refused. He said he did not have Ebola. "

Mabolio was alarmed to see Papa Gilles contaminate his entire family. He had to die so that an Ebola test could be done on the skin. This is the relief here when yesterday we learned that the test was negative. Because the denial that surrounds the epidemic has already caused dramas in this neighborhood. A man says he has almost all his neighbors die of Ebola, hidden at home. In a climate of defiance that he did not even dare to try to reason with fear, he said, to be assimilated for fear of reprisals.

" If you took the trouble to help him, you became an enemy. They would have said that I am also an accomplice of those who brought Ebola. And if they tell me complicit, my house would be demolished or burned. "

In Mabolio, preventive vaccination also gives rise to resistance. Like many locals here. Micheline, 19, still refuses to submit to it. "I do not agree to being vaccinated. Here we have seen people get sick after getting vaccines and eventually die. Ebola does not exist it's only a business. People are dying because of money. "

Unfounded rumors that kill as much as the Ebola virus, and that sensitization teams strive day after day to try to deconstruct to save lives.

The MSF project to reassure people

So, to try to fight against these false beliefs and restore the confidence of the inhabitants, the organization Doctors Without Borders sought an alternative. And set up for three months in five conventional health centers, known to locals. A system that can take care of patients with symptoms of Ebola, the time to make the first analysis, closer to their families, and without necessarily being referred to a treatment center.

It is so with Francine, arrived at this health center two days ago. She complained of headaches, stomach aches and nausea. She was thus isolated directly on the spot, the time to undergo the Ebola test, fortunately negative for her. All without leaving his neighborhood. A small revolution in the management of the epidemic. Because at first, she was immediately transferred to a transit center dedicated to Ebola. A scary prospect for many.

" I would not have agreed to go to a transit center. It scared me. It is said that people there are dying. This is not a good place. "

A repulsive effect that still encourages some residents to hide at home in case of symptoms, which reduces their chances of healing and causes chain infections. It is to break this vicious circle that MSF has installed six hospital beds directly in this health center.

" There were a lot of rumors surrounding this transit center, because indeed it was not in a known place; it was a center that was created in parallel with the normal health system. It was from here that we decided to create isolation here and organize for the levy to be made here; this allows families to visit their relatives; it takes a lot of tension around this idea of ​​isolation in fact, "says Aline Serin, MSF manager in Beni.

In three months, four suspected cases of Ebola have been confirmed positive here, and transferred to a dedicated treatment center. The others tested negative are treated free here. Tecla Katungu, a doctor in this center, saw a real difference: " the suspects who refused, who escaped, they agreed to stay here because they got used to the health center. "

A system that MSF and others want to continue to develop, even if it faces certain limitations. Of the five centers that the NGO already supports, two do not yet offer overnight hospitalization due to insecurity.

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