More Than 70 Congo Medics Infected With Ebola — WHO

A senior World Health Organization official said on Friday that 75 medics in the Democratic ​Republic of Congo had been infected with Ebola and 17 ​of them had died since the current outbreak started there.

Ebola was thought to be circulating months before the outbreak was ​first declared by Congolese officials on May 15, meaning many ​medics were exposed to the disease before they even knew it was present. Even now, health officials say supplies of the basic gear to protect themselves ​like gloves and masks are running short.

“It is a really ​high price that the system, the healthcare system, is paying, because we don’t ‌have enough of healthcare workers in DRC,” a WHO emergency director, Marie Roseline Belizaire, told a press conference by video link from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

Congo has one of the lowest densities ​of healthcare workers ​relative to the population, with only about 11 per 10,000 people, WHO data shows. Belizaire said China and ​Uganda were sending medical teams to the country.

The ​WHO is giving psychological support to some medics who were too scared to treat patients, having watched many of their colleagues fall ill, she added.

“When ​they are explaining to you how ​they live it, how they were infected … (it) can break your heart.”