What dr grace hangi overheard, as she hid from the gunmen burning down the Ebola clinic where she worked, was revealing. The assailants accused the staff of "enriching" themselves. Dr Hangi escaped. But when she returned to what was left of the clinic, many patients had fled, taking the virus back to their villages. What happened that day in February in Butembo, a city in the north-eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is horribly common. Clinics and health workers fighting Ebola in Congo have been attacked roughly 200 times this year. To outsiders, such violence makes no sense. The clinics not only treat the sick, they also curb the spread of a virus that causes fever, bleeding and death. The current outbreak in Congo is the second-worst ever, anywhere. Some 2,700 cases have been recorded, and 1,700 people have died of it. On July 17th the World Health Organisation declared it a global emergency, citing fears that it might surge into neighbouring Uganda, Rwanda and lawless South Sudan. Donor-funded clinics and vaccines are the world's best defence against Ebola. Alas, many Congolese do not see it that way.
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