Despite the deadly attacks targeting Ebola control personnel in Biakato, in the north-east of DR Congo on the night of Wednesday, November 27, Médecins sans Frontières, present in the village, where the NGO is treating patients with dementia. Ebola says its teams remain on the spot. "The insecurity affects the movement in the village is limited, but we work with our local contacts to remedy quickly and be certain that our presence is accepted," said France 24 Ghassan Abouchaar, head of the emergency cell. The NGO, which has a health center in Biakato, employs more than 800 people in the fight against Ebola throughout the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Attacks on Ebola teams in Biakato and Mangina (a few dozen kilometers away) are by far the deadliest of those against Ebola teams since the beginning of the epidemic. On the night of Wednesday to Thursday, four Ebola staff were killed, including an official from the Congolese Ministry of Health who was working for the immunization team and six other people were injured, including an agent of the World Organization of health (WHO).

Withdrawal of WHO staff from Biakato

Insecurity in eastern Congo is undermining efforts to fight the Ebola virus. "All WHO staff have been removed from Biakato," said Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, coordinator of the Ebola response at the World Health Organization. "Staff from other agencies have also been relocated." "Ebola was back, these attacks will revive the epidemic, and therefore more people will die," said the director general of WHO, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Gebreyesus Thursday.

For now, these attacks have not been claimed. The Congolese authorities attribute them to "Mai Mai", militiamen whose actions range from the defense of community interests to serious crime.

The care made difficult in Beni because of the violence

Another area in the east of the country, where anti-Ebola activities are disrupted by violence, the region of Beni, where a hundred civilians have been massacred since November 5. These killings attributed to the armed group ADF provoked for a week of angry demonstrations towards the Blue Helmets present in the region. The ADF was originally a Ugandan rebel movement, based in eastern DRC where it has been rooted for nearly twenty-five years.

The WHO said Tuesday that it has transferred from Beni to Goma 49 of its 120 employees fighting Ebola. "Today we can still work even if the situation is difficult," says MSF's Ghassan Abouchaar. On the spot, the NGO teams continue their activities of treatment of the patients with Ebola, whose cases have decreased. "We continue to provide care not just for Ebola, we also treat people who are injured in demonstrations and attacks," he says.

While the panoply of ways to fight the Ebola virus is poised to be enriched with a second vaccine - currently in clinical trial phase - Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi estimated on November 15 that the epidemic should be eradicated "by the end of the year". "We hope but we will see," says MSF's Ghassan Abouchaar, preferring to remain cautious.

"The number of victims is declining but insecurity persists in several areas, which affects our access to some villages where there are new cases," worries MSF.

Measles kills more than Ebola

Ebola is not the only health concern in DR Congo. In the regions of Equateur [north-west] and central Kongo [west] in particular, MSF is worried about the growing number of measles cases. The disease in the country has killed more than 5,000 people in 2019 alone, while Ebola has killed 2,199 people since August 2018. The current outbreak of measles in DR Congo "is the largest in the world", according to WHO. According to Ghassan Abouchaar, the cases could be much more important, because "all are not reported from the most inaccessible provinces".

The NGO began a vaccination campaign a year and a half ago with the distribution of nearly 400,000 vaccines and the care of children and infants, particularly affected, to prevent the spread of this virus. which is transmitted very easily by direct contact or in the ambient air.