Congo-Kinshasa: DR Congo's Ebola Response Must Be Anchored Locally - Muyembe

Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo — "We must learn from the past. During the 2018 epidemic, basic health structures were insufficiently involved."

The response to the Ebola outbreak in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo must be rooted in the country's local health structures and avoid "asymmetrical" suffering by treating those in state-controlled and rebel-run areas the same, says a leading Congolese virologist.

The current epidemic involves the less fatal Bundibugyo strain of the virus, but there is no vaccine yet for this variant and the outbreak is unfolding in an area of armed conflict between government forces and the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group.

"The most important thing for us is to know that these are Congolese people, on both sides," Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director general of Congo's National Institute of Biomedical Research (INRB), told The New Humanitarian. "Therefore, if there are sick people on that side, they must also receive proper care so that the suffering is not asymmetrical. Everyone has the right to healthcare."

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, or PHEIC, on 17 May, warning that although it didn't meet the criteria of a pandemic emergency, there was significant risk of local and regional spread.

As Ebola resurfaces in DR Congo, so do critical questions about how to respond

Can lessons be learnt from past mistakes, especially avoiding the politicisation or militarisation of the response?

Centred in Ituri province, but also now reported in North Kivu, South Kivu, and as far as neighbouring Uganda, the outbreak has resulted in 534 confirmed cases and 93 deaths, as of 7 June. Nineteen cases and two deaths have been confirmed in Uganda, but the vast majority of cases have been in 25 health zones in eastern DRC.

On 5 June, the WHO and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) launched a joint $518 million plan to tackle the epidemic from June to November, focused on emergency response coordination, surveillance, laboratory analysis, infection prevention and control, clinical care, and community mobilisation.

The 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak centred on North Kivu - the first to unfold in an active conflict zone - became the second-worst outbreak in history, with 2,280 fatalities from the more lethal Zaire strain. The response was marked by militarisation, which drove community mistrust, but also by the bypassing of local health structures.

To find out more about the state of the current response and the challenges it fa