Via Habari RDC, which aggregates Congolese blog posts: Free education or free Ebola in schools? The Google translation:
In the city of Goma, few schools are fighting Ebola. Reason advanced: lack of resources because of free education. Students, teachers and even their directors do not observe the handwashing rule. I find it risky in a context where the Ebola epidemic continues to rage in North Kivu. The free school is likely to be "free of Ebola".
I visited several schools to see if Ebola hygiene measures are being followed. What was not my surprise! Most do not have a handwashing device. Students and teachers come from home and go directly to classrooms without washing their hands. No temperature sampling either. This letting go is in my opinion very dangerous and can facilitate contamination.
The fight against Ebola is everyone's business. You, school authorities, must take care of hygiene measures. "The problem we have in our school is the lack of resources to put in place the health system. It's a big challenge. We do not want to register any confirmed cases of Ebola in our school. Unfortunately, we can not afford prevention, "says Jean-Pierre Viholo Lusambia, head of a primary school run by the Eglise Lumière.
Schools do not have money because of free education
In other schools, teachers force parents to buy disinfectants for their children to eliminate germs. This is because schools can not afford wash basins and flash thermos for temperature sampling.
"We are waiting for the State, which has decreed free education, to provide us with hygiene kits. We do not have money to take care of us. Here everything is free. We do not even have liquid soap for hand washing, we do not have pumps to get water, not even cisterns," explains the prefect Hubert Kahasha Badera.
At Biahi Primary School in Nyiragongo territory, hygiene measures do not exist. During recess, students play in the yard, shake hands, eat together, kiss each other ... Others come out of the bathroom without washing their hands.
In these circumstances, I fear that the Ebola outbreak will spread more.
