Ebola Response Must Work With Religious Leaders
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- Olivia Wilkinson and Katherine Marshall argue that Ebola response in the DRC and Uganda must immediately engage religious and traditional leaders who oversee burial rites, noting one study estimated 2.58 further infections occur per unsafely performed burial.
- In Ituri, DRC, community members attacked a clinic demanding the release of a religious leader's body for burial — an example of how failure to respect burial traditions fuels violence against health facilities.
- During the 2014 West Africa outbreak, a well-regarded Sierra Leonean traditional healer died of Ebola, and over 300 people connected to her funeral subsequently died of the disease.
- The WHO initially advised disregarding religious burial practices, then revised its guidance to produce safe and dignified burial protocols adapted for Muslim and Christian communities — a shift the authors call a 'game-changer.'
- A Sierra Leone study found that religious leaders' messages on Ebola produced a nearly twofold increase in community intention to accept safe alternatives to traditional burials and to wait two or more days for burial teams.
- The authors urge NGOs to conduct rapid religious-dynamics analyses and engage community and religious leaders at every decision point, pointing to existing resources like 'Faith in the Time of Ebola/La Foi en temps d'Ebola' for Christian leaders in the DRC.
Why it matters: Past Ebola responses that sidelined religious leaders produced devastating results — over 300 deaths tied to a single funeral in Sierra Leone. When WHO later integrated religious leaders into burial teams, community acceptance of safe practices nearly doubled, and the authors argue the same model is urgently needed in the DRC, where attacks on health facilities are already occurring over burial disputes.
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