175

A second Ebola treatment center is set ablaze in eastern Congo, with 18 suspected cases leaving (apnews.com)

submitted 1 day ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

26 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Residents of a town at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo attacked and burned part of a health center where people are being treated for the virus, and 18 people suspected of infection left the facility, a local hospital director said Saturday. It was the second such attack in the region in a week.

Unidentified people arrived at the clinic in Mongbwalu on Friday night and set fire to a tent set up for suspected and confirmed Ebola cases by the Doctors Without Borders humanitarian group, Dr. Richard Lokudi, director of the Mongbwalu General Reference Hospital, told The Associated Press.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] HereIAm@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

I had hoped the pandemic denial would be a western phenomena. Too mass media brain rotted with strong political backing to think clearly. I know even things like the Spanish flu had their deniers back in the day, but I thought ebola would be visually and immediate enough that it would be taken seriously.

[-] Watermark710@piefed.social 27 points 1 day ago

I went to a "hot zone" in Africa in the middle of an epidemic because I truly wanted to help in any way that I could. I was making food for doctors, nurses, and patients. I had shots fired at me. The locals tried to kill me. They thought I was harvesting Black bodies to steal their melanin. I legitimately feared for my life, but I didn't leave until the organization I was working for pulled us out. I would have stayed, but without funding there was nothing I could do.

None of it makes sense. If you read into the conspiracy theory, they think we're using their melanin to make our dicks bigger. No, I'm not kidding. I never stole any melanin from a corpse (or at all). I was just there to make food for other humans. That's my passion, I like to feed people.

[-] Juan_de_Silentio@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

Thank you for being honest about this. I had friends that did missionary work in Africa. They talked about this, and so many people accused them of being, "racist Christians," and making it up. The world can only become better educated when the truth is told.

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 21 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Even the name "Spanish" flu is because of denials from other nations:

The outbreak did not originate in Spain,[49] but reporting did, due to wartime censorship in belligerent nations. Spain was a neutral country unconcerned with appearances of combat readiness, and without a wartime propaganda machine to prop up morale,[50][51] so its newspapers freely reported epidemic effects, making Spain the apparent locus of the epidemic.[52] The censorship was so effective that Spain's health officials were unaware its neighboring countries were similarly affected.[53] In an October 1918 "Madrid Letter" to the Journal of the American Medical Association, a Spanish official protested, "we were surprised to learn that the disease was making ravages in other countries, and that people there were calling it the 'Spanish grip'. And wherefore Spanish? ...this epidemic was not born in Spain, and this should be recorded as a historic vindication."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu

I don't think we can convince people to remember it as the more accurate "1918 flu", so maybe the "not-spanish flu"?

[-] ms_lane@lemmy.world 3 points 19 hours ago

'American Flu' would be more accurate.

this post was submitted on 23 May 2026

175 points (100.0% liked)

World News

56237 readers

1932 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world

Recommendations

How to spot Misinformation and Propaganda

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

NewsAutoMod@lemmy.world

Tenthrow@lemmy.world

little_cow@lemmy.world

lemmyAtom@lemmy.world

jordanlund@lemmy.world