Zaire’s Efforts to Contain Virus Criticized

A leading virologist criticized the government’s response to the Ebola epidemic Thursday, saying that roadblocks and quarantines are a waste of valuable time in the race to contain the killer virus.

Instead of putting more soldiers on the highway to prevent stricken people from traveling, more doctors and equipment should be sent to the disease’s epicenter, said Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, who helped identify the Ebola virus 19 years ago.

“The quarantine and the roadblocks are neither necessary nor effective, and more attention should be turned to prevention,” Muyembe said.

Information would slow the rumors that have sent people who fear they have the disease into hiding, he said. Roadblocks, by contrast, create conditions ripe for a new outbreak.

Muyembe said 3,000 people trying to reach Kinshasa from Kikwit, the city of 600,000 where the epidemic broke out, have been camped out at the final roadblock for several days with little food or water--fertile ground for the virus.

Furthermore, anyone with enough money--$550, according to a car rental agency in Kinshasa--can bribe their way through the roadblocks, Muyembe told a news conference in Kikwit.

And people sick with Ebola are generally too disoriented and weak to travel long distances, making the quarantine largely unnecessary, Muyembe said.

No Ebola cases have been diagnosed in Kinshasa, Zaire’s capital. In Kikwit, at least 114 people have been infected and five new cases are appearing daily, Muyembe said. So far, he said, 79 people have died.