The healthcare workers aiming to prevent the spread of the current Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are not only struggling with fighting the disease itself, but also a misinformation campaign that is hampering their efforts. The DRC had an election in December, and recently released the results. These results claim that the opposition leader, Felix Tshisekedi won the popular vote. Institutions monitoring the election, like the Roman Catholic Church monitors, claim that these results were manipulated and not a reflection of the will of the people.
The real question is- how does this manipulation of voting affect the spread of Ebola? The opposition party claimed that the previous government had actually created this strand of the Ebola virus and released it to exterminate Beni, the focal point of the beginning of the outbreak. The opposition party, now in power, is in effect accusing the prior government of releasing biological weaponry on its own people (the logic is not clear as to why this occurred, but they are running with this story). Because of this, and the spread of Ebola, they banned Beni residents from going to the polls. This caused not only a misrepresentation of votes but also more stigmatization about Ebola and the Beni/government connection, leading to an attack on an Ebola evaluation center the same day.
Fighting a disease with the lethality of Ebola is difficult even with a full arsenal of protective equipment in a developed country. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, healthcare workers have to deal with fake news campaigns, stigma surrounding the disease, and the actualities of a disease with a death rate around 50%.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/363/6424/213
-Anja Zehfuss, 1/27
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