United Nations responders said Friday that the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is still spreading while armed groups carry out deadly attacks on civilians and frontline health workers. The responders said the violence is getting in the way of efforts to stop transmission.
Julien Harneis, the UN Senior Ebola Response Coordinator, said that in recent days more people have been killed by fighters of the Allied Democratic Forces than by the disease. The disease is caused by Bundibugyo virus. Harneis said attacks on villages across the south of Ituri and North Kivu provinces go unnoticed, and that following up on contact tracing where the group operates is very hazardous. Contact tracing is the work of finding people who may have been exposed to an infected person.
Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, Executive Director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme, said much progress has been made in containing transmission in eastern DRC. Even so, Ihekweazu said, roughly 400 to 500 infections continue to be identified weekly.
Ihekweazu also said prevention efforts have led to “a significant reduction” in transmission in former hotspots in Ituri province: Bunia, Mongbwalu, Rampara and Nizi. Ihekweazu said responders must keep working with communities and with the specific groups behind the attacks.
Earlier this week, WHO condemned attacks on frontline health workers and community awareness officers. Those attacks, including in Cantine-Aloya in North Kivu, killed 66 civilians, among them three health workers. Three health facilities were also looted. Two weeks ago, a nurse was killed and another health worker badly injured while responding to an Ebola alert in Tshopo province.
Responders have also faced an attempted arson at a treatment centre, and people threw stones at a vehicle used for safe and dignified burials. UN News described these incidents as a sign that trust with vulnerable communities needs to keep being built.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said earlier this week, “We cannot focus only on Ebola.” He said some people in affected communities have told him personally that Ebola is a lesser evil than other threats they face.
The outbreak was declared in May. According to UN News, it is the country’s largest yet and has spread faster than any earlier outbreak across the east and northeast. Confirmed cases now exceed 11,000, and deaths exceed 5,000.
Separately, the UN World Food Programme warned that close to 29 million people in the DRC are acutely food insecure, most of them in the conflict-affected and Ebola-affected eastern and northeastern provinces. Jean-Martin Bauer, the agency’s Director of Food Security and Nutrition Analysis, said the number is likely to keep rising. He told journalists in Geneva by video that conflict is driving the hunger crisis, along with Ebola.
UN-backed food insecurity assessments project that from January to June 2027, 30.3 million people will face crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse. Of those, 4.2 million will face emergency levels of hunger, with the greatest needs in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri provinces. The assessments attribute this to persistent conflict and large-scale displacement.
Bauer said access and resources are needed to keep the situation from getting harder. He said families are being displaced and cut off from their farms and livelihoods, and that rising food prices are making meals hard to afford.