Rumors, Panic Spread Faster Than Ebola Virus

With rumors and lurid headlines fanning fears, health experts trying to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus concentrated Saturday on containing panic, beginning with an information blitz in the quarantined city of Kikwit.

Health workers with megaphones will move into the Kikwit area today to try to dispel fears, the World Health Organization said. The Red Cross said it was planning to pass out 50,000 pamphlets telling people how to avoid contact with the virus.

“We must prevent panic. If people panic, they may flee from the Kikwit region, taking the disease with them,” said Abdelhalim Senouci, Central Africa director of the international Red Cross.

The WHO said Saturday that 57 people are known to have died from Ebola, and 19 more are fighting for their lives. That’s 11 more than Friday’s total count.

While most of the confirmed cases have been in Kikwit, a city of 600,000 people 370 miles east of the capital, one case was reported in the village of Mosango and one in the village of Vanga.

WHO spokesman Richard Leclair said in Geneva the death toll was likely to rise, with the bodies of about 10 more suspected Ebola victims awaiting autopsy at Kikwit General Hospital.

The outbreak began in late March and there have been conflicting accounts of the casualties, partly because there is also an epidemic of bacterial diarrhea in Kikwit. Both diseases are characterized by bloody diarrhea.

Many of the Ebola victims worked in Kikwit General Hospital, including three Italian nuns ministering to the poor in Kikwit. Leclair said the hospital had taken steps to prevent further infection, such as sterilizing rooms.

Today’s public information campaign is aimed at dispelling lingering fears about the vulnerability of patients there.

Health workers with megaphones “will explain that the situation in the hospital has changed. If people are ill they will be well taken care of and fed so they have a better chance in the hospital than by staying at home,” he said.

Leclair said there is no indication that the virus will spread to Kinshasa, the capital. But Red Cross officials said the possibility couldn’t be ruled out, and the governor of the capital wants to ban all planes, boats and vehicles arriving from Kikwit.

“Rumors are uncontrollable, and grow as they are passed from person to person. They’re causing panic and we don’t need that now,” said Dr. Jacques Katshitshi, medical director of the Zairian Red Cross.

The pamphlets the organization was planning to distribute tell people how to avoid contact with the virus without sounding alarmist. They will be in French and three dialects, with illustrations for the illiterate.

“If we tell people they have to stay at home and wear a mask, they will be afraid and flee,” said Dr. Razack Akadiri, a community health adviser for the international Red Cross. “Everyone who has a fever will think they have the virus and are going to die.”

The pamphlets advise people to avoid all contact with the blood of the afflicted; not to wash the cadavers in keeping with tradition; to burn syringes immediately after use; to use gloves to handle the clothes of the sick and boil the clothes before washing.

The Red Cross campaign faces a challenge from rumors that worsen with each retelling and Zairian newspapers, read with morbid fascination on the sidewalks of Kinshasa.

“Ebola on the verge of wiping out the Kikwit region,” screamed a headline in Le Soft. “Two hundred, three hundred, a thousand deaths in a few days in Kikwit and the surrounding area? More?” the newspaper speculated.

“The capital of Zaire is in danger,” said Le Palmares, warning that the deadly virus “could already be in Kinshasa even if epidemiologists have not issued an official confirmation.”

Newspaper vendor Celestin Kimtibidi, 27, said it was enough to scare him - he doesn’t even like to handle the money he must collect from his sales. “It might be contaminated,” he said, although his fear is scientifically unfounded.

Ebola is not spread by casual contact, rather by bodily secretions or liquids. But on Friday, people in Kikwit were avoiding shaking hands.

There is no vaccine or cure for Ebola, which kills 80 percent of those who contract it within days. Victims suffer from violent diarrhea and vomiting, and finally die with blood pouring from their eyes, ears and noses.

Most people have ignored government entreaties to stay off the street, and gone about their daily lives, shopping, working and socializing.

“Ebola hasn’t hit the general population yet, but if it does, we’ll all try to get out of here,” said Kanianga Minkasa, 27.

France is requiring all airline passengers arriving from Zaire to undergo medical checkups.

Bob Swanepoel, an expert on hemmoraghic fever with South Africa’s National Institute for Virology, said French authorities were overreacting.

“The chances of it becoming a big thing are small. Ebola is not like influenza, it’s not going to be spread by a sneeze. Mostly commonly it is transmitted by contaminated blood getting through a break in the skin.”

“The people who live there (in the Kikwit region) can’t afford to leave and fly to Los Angeles,” he said.