AT DUSK ON February 27th a group of young men dressed as football players were kicking a ball around a pitch besides an Ebola treatment centre in Butembo, a city in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Suddenly men with guns and machetes sprang out of the bush and handed weapons to those masquerading as footballers. Together, they charged into the centre. As the sick fled, along with health workers, the men splashed petrol around before tossing in lit matches. When nurses crept back later they found the smouldering remains of the pharmacy, archive room, hand-washing station and vehicles.
在 2月27日黄昏时分，在刚果民主共和国东部城市布滕博（Butembo）的埃博拉治疗中心旁边的球场上,有一群身着足球运动员衣服的年轻人在踢球。突然，一伙男子拿着枪和大砍刀从灌木丛中跳出来，将武器递给那些伪装成足球运动员的人，一起冲进了治疗中心。当病人和医护人员一起逃离时，这伙男子泼下了汽油，用火柴点燃。当护士们后来悄悄回来时，他们发现了药房、档案室、洗手池和车辆都烧得面目全非。
The province of North Kivu is no stranger to misery—it has long been home to some 120 militia groups that regularly rape and terrorise. Now it is also the site of the world’s second-largest outbreak of Ebola, a virus that makes people gush blood from every orifice. Since being detected seven months ago, the virus has spread to nearly 1,000 people and probably killed 600. Its emergence in what is in effect a war zone makes it hard to contain. Health workers are often unable to isolate the infected, or to vaccinate everyone who has touched them. Some villages are deemed too dangerous for vaccinators to visit.
发生在北基伍省的灾难事件并屡见不鲜——大约120个民兵团体长期占据于此，经常发生强奸和恐怖事件。如今，该省也是世界上埃博拉病毒第二大爆发区——这种病毒会使人们的每个孔口都出血。自从七个月前发现该病毒以来，已传染了近1000人，估计致600人死亡。该病毒爆发，实际上是在战争区域难以对其控制而引发。医护人员往往无法隔离感染者，或为接触的每个人都接种疫苗。对接种疫苗的人来说，有一些村庄太过危险，没法前往。
To cap it all, Ebola clinics are being attacked. In the past month alone four have been assailed. A male nurse was strangled in front of his wife. Experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) were ambushed in their car, which was smashed up by men with sticks. A member of the team charged with burying corpses safely, so that they do not infect new victims, was slashed in the head with a machete.
最重要的是，埃博拉预防诊所正在受袭击。仅在过去一个月，就有四人受到袭击。一名男护士被勒死在他妻子跟前。世界卫生组织（WHO）的专家在汽车里遭到伏击，汽车被棍棒砸碎。专家团队的一名成员负责安全地将尸体埋葬，避免感染新受害者，他的头却遭砍刀砍伤。
The attacks have prompted Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to close a treatment centre and leave Butembo. They may also deter patients from getting treatment. Almost half of the deaths in this outbreak are occurring in villages, not clinics, suggesting many of the sick are not seeking help. “Security is still our number one concern and could reverse the gains we have made,” says the WHO.
袭击事件促使无国界医生关闭治疗医疗中心并离开布滕博，同时还可能阻碍患者接受治疗。这场疫情中，几乎有一半的人员死亡都发生在村庄里，而不是在诊所里——许多病人并没有寻求医疗帮助。“安全仍然是我们的最大的问题，可能会让我们所取得的成果功亏一溃，”世卫组织如是说道。
Some premeditated attacks have been blamed on Mai Mai rebels. This is such a vague term, referring to many local armed groups, that it sheds little light. Some attacks are spontaneous, and by unknown perpetrators. What motivates them?
一些有预谋的袭击是马伊马伊（Mai Mai）的叛乱分子发起的。这个团伙很模糊，可以指当地许多武装团体，没人知道得很清晰。有些攻击是自发的，肇事者身份不明。究竟是什么促使了他们的这种行为呢？
Some, perhaps, are in search of loot. Aid workers are conspicuously richer than most locals, and present a tempting target. Another problem is that many locals see health workers as an arm of the government, which they detest. It does not help that the government keeps trying to force people into treatment centres where, since they are already sick, many die. “The response has often treated patients as a biosecurity risk, rather than as a patient with a choice about how they should manage their own illness,” says Alex Wade of MSF. The WHO says it regularly urges the government not to use force. It asks soldiers, police and UN peacekeepers to escort its staff to villages, but then stay on the periphery. This probably helps.
其中不乏有些人是为寻找战利品。有人怀疑援助工作者比大多数当地人要更有钱，而这恰恰是一个诱人的目标。另一个问题是许多当地人将卫生工作者视为政府的部门，而他们不喜欢这样。政府一直试图迫使人们进入治疗中心，而由于已患了病的病人里一些人死亡在治疗中心。无国界医生的亚历克斯·韦德（Alex Wade）说：“这应往往会导致将患者视为生物安全风险，而不是治疗自身的疾病的患者。”世界卫生组织表示经常敦促政府不要使用武力，要求士兵、警察和联合国维和部队护送工作人员到村庄，随后留在外围。这种方法可能是会起到帮助作用。
Another problem is ignorance. Some locals think Ebola was introduced by white people who want to harvest organs. Justin Munyandele, a 24-year-old mechanic, lingering outside his garage in grubby overalls, says Ebola was brought in by the government to exterminate the Nandes, the biggest ethnic group in the region. Others say it is a fiction that was invented to prevent people from voting in elections last year. The poll was suspended because of the outbreak in strongholds of an opposition candidate, Martin Fayulu.
另一个问题便是无知。一些当地人认为埃博拉是由想要收获器官的白人带来的。24岁的机械师贾斯汀·曼严德拉（Justin Munyandele）身着脏的工作服在车库外面徘徊时，表示埃博拉是由政府带进来的，目的是要消灭该地区最大的种族群体Nandes人。有一些人也说这是为了阻止人们去年参加选举而编造的谎言。由于反对派候选人马汀·法裕鲁（Martin Fayulu）所在地爆发疫情，民意调查也因此暂停。
With hindsight health workers recognise that they should have done more to involve local people. “The response started badly,” complains a young motorbike-taxi driver in Katwa, on the edge of Butembo. “They came here with police escorts to be protected. That wouldn’t have been necessary if they had employed people from Katwa to work with them.”
事后看来，医护人员认识到应该做更多的工作来让当地人一同参与进来。 “得到的回应一开始很糟糕，”滕博边的卡特瓦（Katwa）的一名年轻摩的司机抱怨道。 “他们由警察护送而来，并受到众多保护。如果他们雇用Katwa人与他们合作，就没有必要这样做。”
Progress has been made. The rate at which the infection is spreading is much slower than in the outbreak in west Africa that killed more than 11,000 people in 2013-16, possibly because of a new vaccine administered to more than 85,000 people. And efforts to fight myths about the virus are showing results. The WHO says it sees “pockets of mistrust, not a wall” and that 90% of people accept vaccination. William Perea, the incident manager for the WHO in Butembo, says that some once-hostile villages are now letting his teams in. “People are not stupid. They do not like to die like flies,” he says. To soothe tensions and keep the virus from spreading, the key is “to get as close as possible to the communities”.
事件取得了些进展。埃博拉的感染传播速度远远低于西非地区——2013 到2016年时期，埃博拉病毒造成了11,000多人死亡。这可能得益于85,000多人接种了新疫苗。针对有关埃博拉病毒谣言的措施取得成效。世卫组织表示，看到的是“不信任的口袋，而绝非是不信任的高墙”，90％的人接受疫苗接种。世卫组织在布滕博的事件管理员威廉·佩雷亚（William Perea）表示，一些曾经敌对的村庄现在正在积极让他的医疗团队进入。“人们并不愚蠢。他们只是不喜欢像苍蝇一样死去，”他如是说道。为了缓解紧张局势并防止病毒传播，关键还得靠医掮护人员“尽可能地接近当地人社区”。
编译：姚远
编辑：翻吧君
来源：经济学人（2019.03.21）
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