‘It is heartbreaking’: panic in eastern DRC over return of Ebola

“O n public transport, in bars and at mass gatherings, everyone is talking about Ebola,” said Gloire Mumbesa, 38, a resident of Mongbwalu, a mining town in the Democratic Republic of the Congo . He said cases of the disease had been reported locally and panic was engulfing the area because of the lack of a vaccine for the Bundibudyo strain. “The fear is that this disease may spread to many other areas.” Residents of Ituri province in eastern DRC, where the World Health Organization announced an outbreak of Ebola last week, are living in growing fear of the possible continued spread of the disease and its deadly impacts, nearly six years after the last outbreak in the region ended. “We’re stunned by the resurgence of Ebola in our region,” said Dieudonné Lossadekana, 51, a civil society coordinator in Bunia city, where the first suspected case was reported. “We’ve already recorded several dozen deaths. For us, it is heartbreaking.” The economic impacts of the outbreak are a key worry, with residents concerned that authorities may impose restrictions that would hinder them from earning a living in a region plagued by armed conflict and where people are already struggling financially. “We live in a region where poverty is rife and people live from hand to mouth,” said Claude Kasuna, 48, in Irumu territory. …