{"id":47941,"date":"2026-10-14T12:41:58","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T10:41:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=47941"},"modified":"2026-10-14T12:41:58","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T10:41:58","slug":"as-ebola-spreads-in-eastern-drc-mothers-children-shun-vital-care","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/as-ebola-spreads-in-eastern-drc-mothers-children-shun-vital-care\/","title":{"rendered":"As Ebola spreads in eastern DRC, mothers, children shun vital care"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-olk-copy-source=\"MessageBody\">The fear of Ebola is keeping women and children from seeking healthcare in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo DRC), health workers \u200band aid agencies say, contributing to soaring maternal deaths and falling childhood immunization rates that could strain the healthcare system for years to come.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Health \u200cworkers say that misplaced anxiety about contact with Ebola is the primary reason women are forgoing crucial prenatal care and opting to give birth at home and dying more often in the event of complications.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">There is still limited data available but figures for Ituri province are raising alarm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">United Nations figures show that maternal deaths in Ituri province soared nearly 70% between May and July compared with a year \u200bearlier, a troubling indicator of the impact of the Ebola outbreak, currently DRC&#8217;s worst on record on the primary healthcare system.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Steep international aid cuts have also \u200bled to shortages of some life-saving medications.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":34548,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-47941","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Fear of Ebola is keeping women and children from seeking healthcare","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/47941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/47941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47942,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/47941\/revisions\/47942"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=47941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}