San Francisco Frontiers - Locals at epicentre of DR Congo Ebola outbreak storm hospital

Mongbwalu, a large town in the unstable northeastern province of Ituri, is where the current outbreak of the viral haemorrhagic fever was first detected on May 15, since when it has killed more than 200 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

"A group of young people attacked the hospital four times," a hospital official told AFP of the incident on Sunday night.

"They wanted to retrieve the body of a Catholic shepherd who had died of Ebola," the official said on condition of anonymity.

He said the victim had been "a well-known local figure, a religious leader from Mongbwalu", which is home to 130,000 people.

Soldiers intervened to disperse the crowd with warning shots, he said.

Ebola is a deadly viral disease that spreads through direct contact with bodily fluids. It can cause severe bleeding and organ failure.

There is no vaccine or treatment for the Bundibugyo strain responsible for the current Ebola outbreak, the 17th to plague the vast central African country of more than 100 million people.

Attempts to tackle the spread are forced to rely mainly on precautions and rapid contact tracing.

But in rural parts of the DRC, "loved ones are throwing themselves at the bodies, touching the corpses and the clothes of the deceased, while organising mourning rituals bringing together loads of people", Jean Marie Ezadri, a civil society leader in Ituri, told AFP last week.

"This... explains the many instances of contamination."

- Distrust and incomprehension -

Poorly served by roads and torn apart by violence, Ituri is one of the most troubled provinces in the DRC.

Hastily arranged burials of Ebola victims have been met with suspicion in a region already distrustful of the state.

An isolation tent near Mongbwalu hospital was torched on Friday night and the hospital official said his car had been stoned at the weekend.

The tensions were "hampering (Ebola) response efforts", he said.

Another hospital worker confirmed the incidents.

Mongbwalu medical centre is not the first in Ituri to have been attacked.

Tents used to isolate Ebola patients at the hospital in Rwampara, Ituri, were burned down on Thursday after the family of a deceased man was prevented from taking his body for burial because of the dangers of contamination.

Tonnes of medical supplies have been sent to Ituri, where teams from the World Health Organization are on the ground.

But the response has been slow to get off the ground in a province where state services have been largely absent from rural areas for decades.

One million of the province's estimated eight million inhabitants have been displaced by years of conflict and live cheek-by-jowl in cramped camps.

The WHO has issued an international health alert.

N.Wilson--SFF