WHO warns of shortage of doctors to fight Ebola in DRC

The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported a severe shortage of doctors and medical staff to treat Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In the past three weeks, the number of cases in North Kivu alone has skyrocketed by 73 percent. Since the beginning of this outbreak, more than 3.75 thousand people have died from Ebola in the DRC, 7.8 thousand confirmed cases of the disease.

The WHO said 49 Ebola treatment centers and 25 laboratories are deployed in the DRC, which process up to 2,500 tests daily. The centers now have about 1,400 beds and their number is constantly increasing, which exacerbates the problem of staff shortages. “The lack of human resources is one of the biggest challenges,” said Dr Katherine Smallwood, a WHO doctor in North Kivu. She said it was "very difficult to find people who could work" in treatment centers. Anne Ancia, the WHO representative in the DRC, said that for each such center, about 300 doctors are needed, including doctors of various specialties and junior medical personnel.

People are reluctant to sign contracts to work in the Congo for several reasons. One of them is staff compensation. In August, doctors at a centre in Ituri province went on strike because they had not been paid for their work since May. Another problem is violence by local residents, who often do not trust doctors. They burn hospitals and attack medical staff.

Alena Miklashevskaya