Health workers in Bunia are adding Ebola treatment beds and faster testing as WHO reports 906 suspected cases and 223 suspected deaths in eastern Congo.
Health workers in eastern Congo are rushing to expand Ebola treatment and testing in Bunia as a fast-moving outbreak strains hospitals already operating amid conflict, public mistrust and limited treatment options.
The latest official figures cited by the World Health Organization showed 906 suspected cases and 223 suspected deaths. Neighboring Uganda has confirmed nine cases and one death, according to Uganda’s Health Ministry. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus visited Bunia on Saturday and said Congo’s experience ending previous Ebola outbreaks gives him “real confidence” that the latest crisis can be stopped.
In Bunia, the urgency is visible at the point of care. At one new Ebola treatment center built in less than 24 hours, a 48-year-old mother of five arrived feeling ill and was assessed before being taken for testing. As medics moved her toward isolation, she had a seizure, forcing staff to wait until she stabilized before testing could proceed.
That patient was among the first treated at the new site, according to a New York Times video report from Bunia. Doctors still needed several hours to know whether she had Ebola, but that was already an improvement from two weeks earlier, when testing was concentrated about 1,000 miles away in Kinshasa and diagnoses could be delayed for days.
Lab capacity in Bunia has expanded sharply. Workers there said they had been overwhelmed by a backlog of samples, but daily testing capacity had risen from about 36 samples a day to 372. Results were taking about eight to 12 hours, with teams working to reduce that turnaround to two hours.
The outbreak involves the Bundibugyo virus, a rare Ebola species for which there is no approved treatment or vaccine. Medical aid donated by the European Union arrived in Bunia on Thursday, with more shipments expected, and the United States announced an additional $80 million in aid, bringing its total commitment to more than $112 million.
Hospitals in Bunia, including Rwampara and General hospitals, appeared better organized with more staff, protective gear and medical supplies, according to reporting cited by CBC News. Patients were still arriving around the clock. At another clinic, workers were disinfecting the facility after two health care workers died of Ebola, while new structures were being built to isolate and triage suspected cases.
Médecins Sans Frontières warned Saturday that the response still had not matched the speed of the outbreak. “Never before has an Ebola outbreak recorded so many cases so soon after its declaration,” Dr. Alan Gonzalez, the group’s deputy director of operations, said in a statement. “Nobody knows the true scale and severity of this outbreak.”
Containing Ebola depends not only on beds, tests and protective equipment, but also on community trust. Tedros urged responders to listen to residents and emphasized safe burials, a sensitive issue because Ebola precautions can conflict with local rites. Anger over strict body-handling protocols has contributed to at least three attacks on health centers.
The work is also unfolding in a region shaped by years of fighting. Attacks in Ituri by the Allied Democratic Forces and ethnic militias have hindered the response, and the illness has also been reported in North Kivu and South Kivu. In those provinces, the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group controls key cities including Goma and Bukavu, and the rebels have reported two cases.
Travel restrictions are adding another layer of pressure. Uganda and Rwanda have closed their borders, while the Trump administration has barred entry by non-U.S. passport holders who recently visited Congo, Uganda or South Sudan. Tedros urged countries to reconsider such measures, saying travel bans and border closures can discourage the transparency needed to slow an outbreak.
For now, the immediate test is whether the expanding laboratories, new treatment centers and aid shipments can help responders identify and isolate cases faster than the virus spreads, while medical teams continue working in communities where fear, grief and violence are already part of daily life.
Comments (0)