Ebola epidemic takes Bunia unaware
While the international community organizes their response, Congolese doctors and pastors are paying the price of being on the frontlines of Congo’s seventeenth Ebola epidemic.
Congo’s seventeenth Ebola epidemic was declared on May 15, over three months after the first suspected case in Mongbwalu, a few hours from Bunia in northeastern Congo. On February 4, 44-year-old pastor Pastor Paluku Makundi Denis was buried and dozens of people fell sick afterwards. On March 27, three Red Cross volunteers fell sick and died after burying someone.
“That should have rattled somebody’s cage,” said Ted Witmer, Director of Development at Shalom University in Bunia, “but, you know, it was off in Mongbwalu. Medical care is notoriously poor there.” Mongbwalu, a gold mining community, has a reputation for violence. And Ebola tests in Bunia weren’t detecting the new Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, making diagnoses impossible. This new strain of Ebola has symptoms so similar to malaria, many patients didn’t realize what it was.
A delayed response
On April 24, a female patient from Bunia was admitted to the Centre Medical Evangelique Hospital (CME) because of pregnancy complications and internal bleeding. Doctor Déo Ngatane told Christian Courier that, “The entire team that admitted her that day grew sick. Very sick.” The hospital alerted health authorities at the provincial level. “They did tests, but unfortunately at the start, they didn’t find even one thing. Even the test of Ebola that they did, it came out negative. So, God helped those brothers and sisters who were sick. They isolated themselves, recovered, and went to their homes again. And then they returned to work.”
A week later, news – and a wave of sick patients – began arriving from Mongbwalu. And rumours: in Mongbwalu, people claimed the deaths were by poison. Another rumour said that whoever saw a coffin would end up dying.
“We began welcoming sick people, but we didn’t know how to protect ourselves,” Ngatane said. But then one day, they noticed the tell-tale sign of Ebola: “blood started to come out of a sick person.” The health authorities took blood samples from patients at CME and Bunia’s General Hospital to send to Kinshasa, Congo’s capital. “The results said: ebola.”
Strained systems
“I think people were trying to do their best, but it was very chaotic. And it’s going to take a week or two to get systems in place,” said Witmer, on June 4. Witmer is tracking charts of Ebola cases and raising funds for an Ebola response on campus at Shalom University. “It’s a very rapidly changing situation,” he said. There are over 6,000 people connected to Shalom University, including the families of students: “One of our staff members, his mother has died. We have a school for preschool through 12th grade – and two students have died there. One of the parents has died.”
On May 31, CME opened their newly built hospital building, with 40 beds, as an emergency Ebola Treatment Centre, with WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus in attendance. On June 14, Samaritan’s Purse opened two Ebola Treatment Centres with 40 beds each. On June 15, Congo’s Ministry of Public Health confirmed 782 cases and 181 deaths. In the first week of June, the WHO closed clinics and hospitals across town until they were Ebola-ready. Shalom University’s campus hospital was suspended for four days for cleaning and training.
When the epidemic was declared, masks and PPE available in Bunia ran out. The government flew in over 5 tonnes of equipment that went into a warehouse for distribution. But Christian hospitals, like CME and Shalom Hospital, don’t have access to those supplies. Several missionaries, with their agencies, collaborated to bring in $6,000 worth of supplies from Uganda, but between the paperwork and airport closure, it took three days. “It was very hard at the start to access what was needed.”
But even for people who accept the reality of the Ebola epidemic, the lack of adequate resources is frightening. “Here in Bunia, they have four machines. Each machine can do six tests an hour,” explained Bagamba Araali, sociolinguist and founder of Beacon of Hope. Results ideally come back in an hour. “But it’s taking three to four days. The problem is sometimes they don’t have all the chemicals they need. Sometimes there is a problem with electricity.”
Where does a potential patient go while they wait? Araali said that people begin to think: “Maybe when I go to the Ebola treatment centre, that’s when I get contaminated.”
International response
Africa CDC, together with the World Health Organization (WHO), announced on June 5 a budget of 518 million USD (Canada gave 5.5 million to those two organizations) for a six-month plan that will “support African countries together with partners to prepare for, rapidly detect and respond to the outbreak.”
There is some speculation about how effective that money is at reaching the people who need it. WHO told Shalom Hospital and CME to burn all their mattresses, despite medical advice that mattresses could be quarantined until fomites break down. “When I talked to the director of the hospital, he said they told us to burn our mattresses. I said, ‘How are you going to replace them?’ He said, ‘I have no idea. I don’t have funds for that.’” Witmer raised and released funds to replace mattresses at both Shalom Hospital (around 18 beds) and CME (90 beds).
But Witmer explained that there are good reasons to keep the international response separate from local hospitals: the amount of bleach used would be “very damaging for permanent structures,” affecting walls, windows, door handles, sinks, and even electrical wiring. “So, from the Western standpoint, it’s protecting the infrastructure that’s already there, so it can continue to serve. Samaritan’s Purse is bringing in their own team, from mostly the U.S., and then they hire local people to work with them, but they’re firmly in control of what’s going on.”
Campus life
In mid-June, the Congolese government hadn’t closed schools or churches. Jean-Pierre Kamenebake is an assistant theology professor at Shalom University. “Our electrician died yesterday of Ebola,” he shared with CC. “We buried him yesterday. He left seven children, and one of his daughters is in her third year of becoming a doctor. We don’t know who will pay her tuition. His wife doesn’t have work. Only God can open a way.”
Gode, a midwifery student, told CC that while classes continue, placements have been cancelled. “We are just at home,” she said. “Many people are dying. We’re still afraid.”
This situation is tragic but not new, said Kamenebake. Many students come from places that are no longer safe: “Their families died, the churches that sent them were scattered – those churches that ought to have paid for their studies. We have some students at the university who are truly surviving that; they don’t know where to go for placement because the places they come from are in the hands of rebels. So our students face difficulties: the sickness came to add a new difficulty.”
“It will take time before the people managing the things will get the upper hand,” said Araali. “As a church denomination, we are just now gathering. We have all been taken off guard. The pastors are dying, the church elders are dying. So now we just need special help from the Lord.”
Interviews with Ngatane and Kamenabake are translated from Lingala by the author.
Across the border
By June 11, Uganda, which shares a land border with eastern DRC, had 19 confirmed cases of Ebola and two deaths. “What happens in Congo quickly affects Uganda,” said Dr. Raymond Mutava, Country Director of World Renew Uganda. At the end of May, Uganda closed land borders with Congo and suspended all flights, despite advice from the WHO that doing so would increase informal foot traffic. “Many families rely on cross-border markets to survive, so some feel they have no choice but to take risks,” said Mutava. “Their survival depends on it.”
“For many families, Ebola brings deep fear – fear of illness, fear of stigma and fear of
what will happen if someone is reported or taken for treatment,” Matilda Okech, director of World Renew’s International Disaster Response, told CC by email. That fear is “shaped by past experiences of conflict, marginalization, and outside interventions that felt imposed rather than supportive.”
Local congregations, as “trusted spaces,” have a unique role in sharing public health guidance. World Renew partners with churches to support refugees from Congo and Sudan in Uganda’s West Nile border district, which hosts an estimated 1.7 million people from eastern DRC in refugee settlements. “Churches are central delivery platforms, using sermons, radio, schools, and community leaders to reach people quickly and credibly.”
“If cases are identified early enough, treatment is possible and people can recover and return home,” said Mutava. “Our partners are already responding – raising awareness through churches and local leadership.”
(Photo credit: World Renew).
