How Misinformation Is Making It Almost Impossible to Contain the Ebola Outbreak in DRC

If Florida Kayindo hadn’t contracted Ebola herself, she wouldn’t believe that it existed. The 36-year-old grins with bemusement thinking about all the rumors she’s heard. “In the beginning people thought Ebola wasn’t a real illness, it was brought in by white people,” she explains. “White people are evil, that’s what people in the community believe,” Kayindo tells TIME. “Before Ebola white people were around, but now they’re thinking white people came with Ebola.” Kayindo was declared Ebola free in November 2018 and since then she has been working in a childcare center on the grounds of Beni General Hospital, in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, North Kivu province, close to where the Ebola outbreak began last August. Like other survivors, she has antibodies that mean she can’t get sick from the virus again, and is now being paid to care for the children of others who are undergoing treatment. Despite her experience with the virus, Kayindo occasionally appears to question whether her understanding of Ebola and how it is contracted is correct. She finds herself asking could it have been spread through food or water, similar to a scene she once saw in an old sci-fi movie. Kayindo is not alone in her skepticism. Misinformation has contributed to the difficulties containing the virus in DRC, where more than 1,300 people have now died in the second largest Ebola outbreak in recorded history. ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized DRC ebola onetime Source Type: news