The death toll from Ebola in DR Congo has reached 600 News about Ebola

The death toll comes as health workers threaten to walk away from their jobs over delayed payments.

About 600 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have died from Ebola, while the number of people diagnosed with the disease has risen to 1,759, according to a government investigation.

All the figures, released on Wednesday, were confirmed from Tuesday, when 51 new cases and 20 deaths were recorded in the last 24 hours.

The number of people infected does not include two cases of the disease reported in Kisangani, the capital of Tshopo province and one of the largest cities in the DRC, where the test results were confirmed, the government report said. They will be included in all cases when confirmed.

One of the two cases was linked to Nia-Nia village in Ituri district, where the first case was reported. But the second disease “does not seem to be related to the Kisangani area,” the government said.

As the situation worsens, health workers in Ituri region, one of the three eastern regions most affected by the outbreak, are walking off their jobs to protest against delayed payments.

In a statement to state and regional officials over the weekend, frontline workers in Ituri threatened to strike if they were not paid in 24 hours. By Tuesday, some had already stopped working, although no threat has been announced, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Some of the health professionals and other frontline workers told the AP that they have not been paid salaries or bonuses since Ebola was declared on May 15. They said they are working with limited resources and are being treated unfairly by government officials and response teams.

“Since the Ebola outbreak was announced, we have been wanting to pay for our work,” Dr Biensi Kano, a member of the epidemiological committee in Ituri’s capital, Bunia, told AP.

The strike comes at the start of registration for a clinical trial to treat the Bundibugyo virus that causes the epidemic. The Bundibugyo strain of Ebola is generally considered to be more deadly than others, but there is no approved vaccine.

By the time the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in May, the virus had already been spreading for several weeks through the mining towns of Mongbwalu, Rwampara and Bunia, before reaching the neighboring districts, according to Al Jazeera’s Catherine Wambua-Soi. reported in the DRC at the beginning of this month.