Congo will deploy security forces to protect teams transporting the bodies of Ebola victims for burial, the government said, after several attacks on health workers during the latest Ebola outbreak in the country's troubled east.
The government is also making it a legal obligation for traditional healers to report those suspected of having the virus, the health ministry said in a statement Tuesday night.
The new measures come after the International Red Cross last week condemned an attack that injured three of its volunteers who were trying to bury an Ebola victim.
In September, one Red Cross volunteer was injured when people threw stones at a vehicle transporting a safe burial team.
The organization has noted there is fear and distrust among those in the communities they are trying to help in Eastern Congo, which is plagued by conflict.
Ebola has claimed 118 lives since the outbreak started nearly two months ago in a region where numerous militia groups operate, most fighting over the central African country's rich natural resources.
Last month, 21 people died in an attack by the Allied Democratic Forces rebels in the city of Beni, forcing the World Health Organization to briefly halt their anti-Ebola operations there.