Congo’s deadly struggle

Dr. Abdou Sebushishe recently watched a video on social media featuring an influencer who claimed to report from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “I’m in DRC currently,” the woman said. “And whatever they say is wrong. There is no Ebola here.”

Sebushishe said posts to this effect—claiming Ebola is just a hoax humanitarian workers use to collect money—have circulated widely online amid the ongoing outbreak in Congo and Uganda. They fuel rumors that doctors are experimenting on isolated Ebola patients or selling their organs.

Sebushishe knows nothing could be further from the truth. He knows Ebola, and over the past decade, he’s witnessed just how deadly it can be.

In 2014, Sebushishe said he was among the first nine doctors the African Union sent to respond to the West African Ebola outbreak—the largest ever on record. Over 11,000 people died.

Later, Sebushishe responded to South Sudan when epidemiologists feared Ebola would spread there in 2019, and he helped with another Ebola outbreak in Congo late last year. But this time, the fight is especially personal. Sebushishe, now a senior global health adviser with International Medical Corps, is spearheading the group’s response from Goma, Congo—his hometown.

The Congolese province of Ituri is the epicenter of this latest Ebola outbreak. Cases have also surfaced in North and South Kivu provinces. It’s a vast response area Sebushishe says is roughly the size of Portugal, Austria, and Belgium combined.

The region is also an active conflict zone, where healthcare resources are already taxed and scarce. The type of Ebola spreading there, Bundibugyo, is a rare strain that currently has no vaccine or effective treatment. The past two Bundibugyo outbreaks had fatality rates ranging from 30% to 50%. On top of all these risks, healthcare workers must battle waves of online misinformation and overcome public skepticism as they try to stop the virus’ spread and care for the sick and dying.

The current Ebola outbreak is much smaller than the West African one in 2014. As of June 4, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 471 confirmed cases and 84 confirmed deaths across Congo and Uganda. But it is spreading fast, in part because it was identified late.

The Congolese government officially announced the outbreak on May 15 and the World Health Organization declared a public health emergency of international concern two days later. Sebushishe said experts don’t know exactly how long the virus spread before that, but they’ve heard reports of unexplained deaths in Ituri at least a month before the official declaration.

As a result, it’s not clear how many people might have been exposed to Ebola. Sebushishe said healthcare workers are doing their best to catch up and trace this outbreak back to its original source. But he said they missed a critical window for early detection, leaving experts to worry it might eventually rival the West African outbreak.

Albert Baliesima Kadukima is doing his best to make sure that doesn’t happen. Kadukima is executive director of ESADER, an organization caring for orphans and vulnerable children. A decade ago, he helped launch a radio station called Umoja FM to serve Congo’s conflict-ravaged eastern district. Now, he’s using that station to raise awareness about Ebola and what people can do to help keep themselves safe.

Stopping Ebola’s spread is a life-or-death mission, Kadukima said: “If ­people do not apply the preventative measures, then many eople will die.”

Kadukima explained the situation on the ground is especially dangerous because of the dozens of armed rebel groups and militias already plaguing the Ebola-affected regions. On June 2, one of these groups, the Allied Democratic Forces, murdered at least 16 civilians in a village close to where four Ebola cases were recorded, according to Reuters.

ADF is loyal to the Islamic State terror group, and just a few days earlier, killed another 16 people in the nearby city of Beni. Kadukima said ADF fighters have also destroyed and looted healthcare facilities and kidnapped some healthcare workers.

David Munkley is World Vision’s Zonal Director for Eastern DRC. He said now that Congo’s borders with Rwanda and Uganda are closed, humanitarian workers traveling from Goma to the cities of Beni and Bunia must traverse territory where ADF and other militant groups are active. “It’s incredibly risky,” he said.

Munkley said the recent ADF incursion into Beni scared residents and might cause some internal displacement—escalating the risk of further Ebola spread. He said contact tracing is essential to keep numbers down. But reports he’s heard estimate the effectiveness of current tracking somewhere between 20% and 50%. “It should be 95%,” he added.

Unlike COVID-19, which spreads through the air, Ebola transmits through an infected person’s bodily fluids. As a result, the corpses of those who die from Ebola are highly contagious. However, recommended medical protocol conflicts with Congolese burial practices that often involve washing the body and hosting large funeral wakes.

Already, residents of Ituri have burned down two Ebola treatment centers after officials refused to return the body of a suspected Ebola patient to his family and then banned funeral gatherings of more than 50 people.

Munkley said his team relies on partnerships with Congolese medical officials, teachers, and religious leaders to bridge cultural divides and relay life-saving messages in ways that make sense to people.

As the Ebola crisis wears on, doctors and nurses often find themselves running short on medical supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE), according to Samaritan’s Purse Director of International Health Dr. Elliott Tenpenny.

“They do their absolute best,” Tenpenny said. “But the resources are limited and the needs outstrip resources at a normal time, much less during Ebola.”

“This is why providers, nurses, and others get sick,” he added.

On May 19, American missionary and surgeon Dr. Peter Stafford was medevaced to Germany for treatment after contracting Ebola at a Congolese hospital shortly before the outbreak was declared. Berlin’s Charité hospital released Stafford on June 6.

Meanwhile, Samaritan’s Purse is building two different Ebola treatment centers in the city of Bunia and at Nyankunde Hospital, where Stafford worked. It has shipped nearly 80,000 pounds of medical supplies and PPE there.

Back in Goma, Dr. Abdou Sebushishe recently saw another video on social media—this one claiming to show the funeral of a doctor who died from Ebola. Sebushishe said posts like that sow fear among healthcare workers. He spends much of his day trying to make sure doctors and nurses have the training and support they need to feel confident in their work.

Just the other day, Sebushishe’s mother called him. She still lives in Goma and wanted reassurance from her son that he was safe.

But Sebushishe isn’t dwelling on what could happen to him. He’s concerned with holding the line for the rest of the world. “We just need to contain this now and locally before it causes more trouble other places,” he said.

Meanwhile, government officials are trying to shut down borders and keep the disease from spreading further into Uganda or ravaging other currently unaffected countries.

As of June 8, the Ugandan Ministry of Health reported 19 confirmed Ebola cases in the country. Richard Tumwizere is a Baptist pastor who serves at a Ugandan church in the town of Kisoro, near the Congolese border.

Tumwizere’s town is a transit hub, one of two primary routes Congolese workers use to get to Uganda’s capital city of Kampala. He said this is the third time he remembers hearing about Ebola spreading to his country from Congo. Local leaders have shut down the border and sent security forces to enforce the lockdown.

At one point, officials reported two suspected Ebola cases in Kisoro, Tumwizere said, but both turned out to be negative. Medical task forces are still actively working to trace contacts of the positive cases reported in Kampala.

Tumwizere is doing his best to implement health guidelines at his church and encourage his congregants to be vigilant. Health leaders have advised them not to hug or shake hands, and Tumwizere encourages people to wash their hands before attending services. He also has someone with a temperature gun checking people at the door.

But there’s no foolproof solution, especially when cultural norms are at odds with recommended safety measures. “In our culture, people want to be together every time,” Tumwizere said. “They want to shake hands, they want to hug, they want to be together in a group.”

For some people, Ebola can seem like a distant threat, Tumwizere said. “They will say, ‘Ah, we are hearing from Kampala…It is not yet here.’”

But the danger is real, he added, especially in areas with significant shortages of medical supplies and healthcare workers. He said many people lost loved ones when COVID-19 spread to Uganda in 2020.

Because of that, he keeps urging his congregants to submit to government health recommendations. And with Ebola spreading fast just across the border, Tumwizere said Christians in Uganda are praying for a quick end to the outbreak. “Everybody in the church, way out in the mountains, people are praying that Ebola can go away,” he said.

But Tumwizere also reminds his congregants they can trust God—even if Ebola comes to their town. “He will not forsake us,” Tumwizere said.

“God is still powerful,” he added. “He allows these things to happen, but he also knows how he will protect us through it. So, my encouragement is to know God is still present and also to fix our eyes on him.”

Editor's note: This story is an expanded version of what appeared in the July magazine issue.