Mistrust and machetes thwart efforts to contain Ebola in Guinea: TRFN

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Mistrust and machetes thwart efforts to contain Ebola in Guinea: TRFN

Tue Feb 10, 2015 1:30pm GMT ]
By Misha Hussain

Lola, Guinea ? When Red Cross pickups crawl through the streets of the Guinean town of Lola in search of Ebola victims, crowds of women gather to shoo the medical workers away, young boys throw stones and angry men reach for their machetes.

In the country where West Africa's Ebola outbreak began, hostility towards aid workers - fuelled by ever more far-fetched rumours - is undermining efforts to contain the deadly virus.

"People tell us if we don't leave they'll beat us up, or smash up the car," said Paquile Zoglelemou, head of the Red Cross in Lola, a town set in thick, tropical jungle in the deep southeast of Guinea near the Liberian border.

Concerns about violence directed at aid teams comes as the number of new cases of Ebola rose at the start of February in all three of West Africa's worst-hit countries - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - ending previously encouraging declines.

In Lola, a market town with houses of mud brick and tin roofs, a spate of new Ebola cases in recent weeks has stoked fear and mistrust. Despite government efforts to inform people about the virus, false rumours and conspiracy theories win out.

One rumour holds that Western governments have planted the virus, another that spraying of disinfectants is actually a means of infecting others, and even that Ebola treatment centres are used for the extraction and trafficking of human organs.

"The Red Cross wants to kill us," said Lah Wiemou, an elder in the village of Ouye, near Lola. "They put the virus in the water and spray it around the village, or when they take away the sick, the medication they give them contains Ebola."
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http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFKBN0LE1K920150210

 

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Red Cross Ebola teams in Guinea attacked 10 times a month

CONAKRY Thu Feb 12, 2015 7:20am EST

(Reuters) - Red Cross teams in Ebola-hit Guinea have been attacked on average 10 times a month over the past year, the charity said on Thursday, warning that the violence was hampering efforts to contain the disease.

In the most recent incident last Sunday in the town of Forecariah about 60 kilometers (40 miles) southeast of Conakry, two Red Cross volunteers were beaten while trying to conduct a safe burial, the charity said.

Ending traditional burials is seen as crucial to stopping the spread of the latest outbreak, which has killed more than 9,100 people, mainly in West Africa, because rituals often involve extensive contact with highly contagious corpses.

"As long as people have misconceptions about how Ebola is spread, and continue to prevent volunteers from doing their work, we will not stop the disease," said Youssouf Traore, president of the Red Cross Society of Guinea.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/12/us-health-ebola-guinea-idUSKBN0LG1GO20150212