Sawt Falasteen - Nursing federation demands proper pay, protection on Ebola front line

The ICN said some nurses and other health workers had gone unpaid for two to three months while facing serious risks to their lives.

"You cannot fight Ebola if you don't pay the people fighting it," ICN chief executive Howard Catton said in a statement.

"Nurses are risking their lives to protect their communities, often at great personal risk, yet months into this crisis many are still waiting to be paid.

"Our calls are clear: Pay health workers what they are owed, guarantee they will be paid regularly from now on, and give them the protection they need to do their jobs."

The Democratic Republic of Congo declared its 17th Ebola outbreak on May 15, but the virus is outpacing efforts to rein in the spread.

There have been 4,566 confirmed Ebola cases in the DRC, including 2,128 deaths, while 918 patients have recovered, according to latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO).

Health care workers are among the dead and infected.

- Trust gap -

The Geneva-based ICN federation, covering national associations representing over 30 million nurses worldwide, has written to the DRC's health minister, Roger Kamba, with a list of demands.

They include the provision of adequate personal protective equipment plus immediate action on pay, including all outstanding wages and risk allowances, alongside insurance and compensation.

"This is about protecting nurses' basic rights, but it also about stopping Ebola," said Catton.

"If you don't protect and pay your health workers, you will lose them -- and without them, there is no effective response."

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the world's largest humanitarian network, said Friday it was working with local communities to try and ensure the response is understood, accepted and supported.

- 'Playing catch-up' -

This latest Ebola outbreak is spreading faster than any before, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.

"At its current pace, it is on track to eclipse the west African Ebola outbreak of 2014 to 2016" -- the worst ever recorded, killing more than 11,000 people.

"The outbreak had a big head start, it is still way ahead of us, and we are playing catch-up."

Tedros said that most concerningly, a high proportion of deaths were in communities instead of treatment units, outside of known contact lists.

He said the plan was to triple treatment capacity -- with a goal of 3,000 beds within 12 weeks -- and to recruit and train three health workers for every patient, which is "thousands more than we have at the moment".

Ebola spreads through contact with bodily fluids and causes a haemorrhagic fever.

This outbreak is driven by the Bundibugyo species of Ebola -- for which there are no approved vaccines or treatments.

W.Mansour--SF-PST