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Africa's Ebola outbreaks complicated by victims who prefer traditional healers over hospitals
World

Africa's Ebola outbreaks complicated by victims who prefer traditional healers over hospitals

  • By RODNEY MUHUMUZA Associated Press

Whenever Ebola comes, some of those stricken choose the road to the nearest hospital. Others take the path to the shrine of a traditional healer who can prescribe herbs or offer prayers. With often devastating consequences, too many choose to go to sacred places when they feel the hemorrhagic fever possessing them is perhaps a spiritual event. This is the case now in Congo, which is suffering its seventeenth outbreak of Ebola in a remote eastern region. Five decades after the Ebola virus was first identified in the rich ecosystem known as the Congo Basin, the disease's symptoms retain the capacity to mystify the afflicted while turning religious leaders into first responders in a deadly emergency.

This day in history
Lifestyle

This day in history

  • The Associated Press
  • Updated

Today is Monday, Sept. 17, the 260th day of 2018. There are 105 days left in the year.