War, crisis and Ebola – children are the worst hit

TT

Updated 07.12 | Published 06.56

          

          

          

         Children who are internally displaced and live in a camp in Bunia in northeastern Congo play with a           broken water pump. The picture was taken on Tuesday.

         1 / 3Photo: Moses Sawasawa/AP/TT

A child who was injured by a grenade raised suspicions of Ebola infection on the operating table.

The deadly hemorrhagic fever is spreading in the middle of a raging war with hundreds of thousands of displaced people, many of whom are children.

– The outbreak is truly a nightmare, says doctor Babou Rukengeza.

An Italian surgeon who has been in contact with Ebola-infected people in Ituri in northeastern Congo-Kinshasa is in quarantine in Rome, the Italian Health Ministry announced this week.

The surgeon is said to have performed emergency surgery on a child who had been injured by an exploding grenade. The conflict-torn area is also believed to be the epicenter of the new Ebola outbreak – and during the operation it emerged that the blast-injured child was also likely infected.

Several of the Ebola deaths confirmed so far have been children. They are the most vulnerable and almost every other resident of the shaky region is younger than 15 years old.

“Could have held”

Ebola is spreading much faster this time, emphasizes Congolese doctor Babou Rukengeza, who leads Save the Children’s efforts in the country. He has worked on several previous outbreaks, but believes that Congo-Kinshasa was forgotten and was less well-equipped.

– Before the major cuts in aid, healthcare here was strong enough to be able to keep the outbreak within one or two hospital districts. Now there are alarms about infection cases in 14 districts, he tells TT by phone.