Gunmen storm Congo hospital treating Ebola patients

A group of armed young men burst into an eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo hospital on Sunday night, demanding that bodies be returned to their families. Staff and patients at Mongbwalu General Hospital were forced to evacuate, Dr. Richard Lokudu told the Associated Press. Ebola is not an airborne virus and instead spreads through bodily fluids or direct contact. The remains of people who have succumbed to Ebola must be handled with great care, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

The raid marked the third attack on an Ebola facility in just a week. A treatment center was burned down on Thursday after family members were barred from receiving the remains of an Ebola victim. Locals burned down a Doctors Without Borders treatment tent on Saturday.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cited ongoing regional violence and mistrust as serious impediments to the WHO’s contact tracing and case identification. He characterized the Ituri province as the outbreak’s epicenter, where nearly 5 million people live amid ongoing conflict, and about 1 in 5 people are internally displaced, or forced from their homes while remaining in the country.

The World Health Organization identified over 900 suspected cases of Ebola within the Democratic Republic of Congo, including about 100 confirmed cases, Ghebreyesus reported on Sunday. WHO identified the outbreak strain as the Bundibugyo species, which has no approved vaccine or treatment.

What is being done to serve grieving families? Volunteers with the International Federation of Red Cross worked to provide victims with safe and dignified burials, according to a Monday release. Samaritan's Purse shipped a cargo plane full of essential supplies to the DRC to support the outbreak response, according to a Sunday statement from ministry CEO Franklin Graham.

How is the American missionary diagnosed with Ebola? The international Christian missions group, Serge, released a Sunday update about another American missionary now under isolation after a fellow missionary contracted the virus. Serge reported last week that missionary Peter Stafford contracted the virus while serving in the DRC. Stafford’s colleague, missionary Patrick LaRochelle, remained without Ebola symptoms at a Prague hospital after spending 72 hours in a BioBox chamber, according to the Sunday update.

Dig deeper: Listen to Onize Oduah’s report in The World and Everything in It about the new Ebola outbreak and the basic containment strategies to stop the virus from spreading.