The Executive Director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Programme says Ebola infections among healthcare workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been partly caused by the refusal of some local workers to get vaccinated. Dr. Michael Ryan spoke to CGTN's Chris Ocamringa in the DRC capital Kinshasa.

DR. MICHAEL RYAN WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION "It's a very dangerous thing to make predictions like West Africa. The situation here in the DRC is very different to that of West Africa. We have the tools to do the job, we have the surveillance, we have the vaccines! And we have a very strong team on the ground working with our ministry of health colleagues. What's really really set us back has been just hugely intense bouts of violence and insecurity."

DR. MICHAEL RYAN WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION "There's been an increase of protection around Butembo and Katwa but it's much more complicated. We are dealing with many different armed groups many 'Mai Mai' groups are very much in the community. They aren't an external force as such and they can't be taken on in major battles. It's a much more negotiated, mediated approach. It needs very careful negotiation and we absolutely have to avoid political manipulation of that and the gaming that goes on in that situation because attacking the response has become an instrument of politics, we just have to stop this, we just have to stop this!"

DR. MICHAEL RYAN WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION "The rate of infection in health workers is dropping but there are still cases every week and this is really not acceptable. Some health workers have refused vaccination which is very very strange. But you have to understand when we say the word health worker that's all the way from a traditional healer working from a backroom in a house all the way through to a large private facility offering major surgeries. So when we speak of a health worker in the context of Kivu or anywhere in Congo, it's a very broad range of people with a very broad range of training and a very broad range of understanding around the importance of vaccination."