STAT: CDC director planning to travel to DRC as country battles Ebola outbreak
“Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is expected to travel [this] week to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a rare trip to the country by a U.S. official as it battles what is now the second largest Ebola outbreak on record. Redfield will make the trip with the director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, according to a WHO statement. The CDC would not confirm Redfield’s travel plans. … A State Department bar on U.S. government employees working in the outbreak zone is still in effect…” (Branswell, 3/1).

Vox: Arsonists attacked 2 facilities treating Ebola patients in Congo. That’s a major setback.
“The humanitarian agency Doctors Without Borders was forced to suspend operations in two areas where it’s been responding to the Democratic Republic of Congo Ebola outbreak, following arson attacks on its health care facilities this week. … The attacks happened on MSF’s treatment centers in the most active hot spots in the outbreak, neighboring cities called Katwa and Butembo…” (Belluz, 3/1).

Washington Post: ‘We don’t know their motivation’: Ebola treatment suspended after attacks on clinics in Congo
“…As in other Ebola responses, health workers in Congo are working to try to earn the trust of local communities where the virus is spreading. Parts of Congo’s North Kivu province are volatile, and violent armed groups have slowed the Ebola response there. And after years of conflict, some communities in the area are fearful and suspicious of outside intervention…” (O’Grady, 3/1).

Additional coverage of the DRC Ebola outbreak and response is available from Al Jazeera, CIDRAP News, Deutsche Welle, NPR, Reuters, STAT, The Telegraph, U.N. News, and VOA News.