Doctors, nurses and security staff at the Elikya Ebola Treatment Center in Bunia, in Ituri province, walked off the job on July 25. Operations halted. About a hundred workers stood outside. The dispute is two months of unpaid performance bonuses [1].
Martin Bolombi, one of the health workers, described what that means from where he was standing: 'We need to be paid, because in the meantime the disease is spreading at the treatment center. I've already had five people die who are still inside there' [1].
The scale around him: Congolese government data released July 24 counts 2,973 confirmed cases and 1,309 deaths, with 766 patients in isolation or hospital [1].
A day later Al Jazeera reported 3,075 cases and more than 1,354 deaths [2]. The two figures come from different counts on different days, and both are given here rather than reconciled - reconciling them would mean picking one without a reason to.
Response operations manager Dr Adelard Lufungula said the payment issue was 'being resolved' [1].
What makes this worth reporting outside the region is the shape of it, which is not exotic. A containment facility stopped working because a payroll line did not clear. The cost of the strike is measured in transmission; the cause is measured in owed wages, and somebody knows that number exactly.
