(NAN)Medical workers fighting Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo are demanding that authorities provide better protection for them after an attack on a treatment centre left one doctor dead.
Distrust of the disease and of the medical personnel working to contain it has led to violence, even as the outbreak, the second-largest ever, enters its eighth month. The outbreak has killed 970 people and sickened 1,480 as of April 30, according to the Ministry of Health.
Dr. Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung,a Cameroonian epidemiologist with the World Health Organization, was killed on April 19 when armed men attacked a hospital in Butembo, in North Kivu Province.
It was the latest reminder of the risks that Ebola responders face in the northeastern region, where the epidemic has hit hardest and which has long been a conflict zone between armed groups and security forces.
Several treatment centres in the area have been attacked in recent months, and a nurse was killed in Vuhovi, in North Kivu Province, in February by a group of men armed with bows and arrows.