Deaths in Congo displacement camp raise fears of wider Ebola spread

Fear is moving faster than the response in a displaced-persons camp in northeastern Congo, where at least 30 people died since the start of May and aid workers warned that the disease may be spreading before officials can confirm it. In Kigonze camp in Bunia, the epicenter of the country’s Ebola outbreak, deaths have piled up in a settlement already strained by conflict, crowding and weak sanitation.

The outbreak was officially declared on May 15, the 17th Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1976. The World Health Organization said the virus involved is Bundibugyo Ebola, for which there is no approved vaccine or specific treatment, and described the crisis as unfolding amid insecurity, high population movement and a remote, densely populated area. By May 21, WHO said Congo had 746 suspected cases and 176 suspected deaths, with 85 confirmed cases and 10 confirmed deaths across Congo and Uganda.

The hardest part has been confirming what killed people in the camp. Patients and relatives had refused testing of both the living and the dead until Thursday, leaving health teams without laboratory proof even as the symptoms reported, including headaches, fever and vomiting, matched Ebola. Camp spokesperson Desire Grodya Bapi said, “People didn’t just die like this before,” a grim measure of how abnormal the recent mortality had become. Camp president Dz’djo Ndrutsi Etienne said 10 people were buried in one week alone.

Health workers and aid groups said resistance to testing was slowing the response at the very moment speed mattered most. Justin Zanamuzi, director of Caritas, said teams found bodies covered in sheets, including a pregnant woman and children, and tried to persuade families to let doctors inspect the dead, but were refused. The camp hosts more than 15,000 people, and the deaths deepened fears that Ebola could be circulating undetected among eastern Congo’s more than 5 million displaced people. Cholera can also mimic Ebola symptoms, adding another layer of uncertainty in a camp where sanitation is severely limited.

The outbreak has already spread across Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu, and both WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said insecurity, displacement, mining-related movement and cross-border travel are making containment harder. WHO said contact follow-up was running at about 45%, far below the more than 90% officials say is needed to get ahead of transmission. On June 3, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Bunia had three Ebola treatment centres with 80 beds total, while WHO said six people in Congo and two in Uganda had recovered. The appearance of deaths in another displacement camp, Kpangba, underscored how quickly the outbreak could widen if surveillance, trust and access do not improve now.