An AP journalist describes a month in the epicenter of Congo’s Ebola outbreak

BUNIA, Congo | Mourners stood at a distance as a small coffin was lowered into the grave. Health workers wearing masks and gloves joined a priest who prayed.

A 6-month-old girl was the latest victim of the Ebola outbreak sweeping through eastern Congo. She was the third child in her orphanage to die.

After a month reporting from the outbreak’s epicenter with AP photographer Moses Sawasawa, this quiet scene has stayed with me the most.

From afar, the epidemic is often measured in numbers: over 1,300 confirmed cases, hundreds of deaths, tens of thousands of people who may have had contact with them.

The funeral is when we truly realized the gravity of the outbreak. Ebola does not distinguish between young and old, educated and uneducated, rich and the poor, civilians and health professionals.

And of course it’s not over. Experts say the peak of infections hasn’t been reached. There are no approved treatments for this type of Ebola, Bundibugyo, and the arrival of any vaccine is said to be months away.

Another death that stayed with us was that of a medical student a few months from graduation. She had been the hope of her family and a badly needed health professional in a remote region where outbreaks, like this one, can go undetected for weeks.

At her funeral, her mother was inconsolable.

Reporting on this outbreak means multiple dangers

It is hard to imagine a more challenging place for a deadly outbreak to unfold.

Every day of reporting began and ended with a careful process of protection and disinfection. Ebola is highly contagious and can be contracted via bodily fluids such as vomit, blood or semen. That meant putting on gloves, masks and hair nets in 80-degree Fahrenheit heat (26 Celsius) and 80% humidity.

Our driver’s vehicle, our microphones and other equipment had to be disinfected after entering outbreak-affected areas. The routine became second nature.

As we reported at struggling health centers, the sound of crying families followed us. The air was thick and humid, and people were slick with sweat. Health workers moved between crowded wards, washing their hands again and again.

Seeing the grief and lives cut short reminded me of covering the previous crisis in this region, the capture of Goma city, a humanitarian hub, last year by M23 rebels. Wounded babies, children and adults were rushed to hospitals to the sounds of weeping loved ones.

The Ebola outbreak is centered in neighboring Ituri province, scarred by years of such conflict. Armed groups control some areas and nearly a million people have been displaced. Economic hardships have now deepened.

We found some people trying to keep their hands clean with oatmeal and sand.

In the first three weeks after this outbreak was declared in mid-May, at least 520 security incidents, including attacks on health workers, impacted the work of responders, the World Health Organization said.

Attacks continue to be reported. We saw hospital beds left charred, the patients having fled.

Other people with confirmed or suspected Ebola infections have been abducted, disappearing into a world of poor mobile phone signal and bone-shaking unpaved roads.

In these surroundings, local people like Husein Twaibu are coordinating the community response.

Twaibu told me at least four health zones in Ituri, encompassing thousands of people, remain inaccessible because they are under rebel control. Unable to enter, response teams are relying in part on rebel leaders to pass on Ebola prevention messages and encourage participation in measures meant to slow the spread of the virus.

But that brings up another problem.

Misinformation and fear are the biggest challenges

I repeatedly heard the concern from doctors and aid workers: Many residents do not trust the Ebola response. Some believe the disease is not real.

In a region long traumatized by attacks and exploitation of rich natural resources, people are wary of outsiders. A lack of understanding of Ebola, whose symptoms like fever can be mistaken for others like malaria, means the strict prevention measures can be jarring.

There has been anger especially around burials, with people told not to do what comes naturally: bathe and prepare a loved one for the grave.

The distrust is one reason health officials don’t know the outbreak’s true size. Authorities still haven’t identified the first person who became ill.

Some residents avoid health centers. At times, community health workers who survived an Ebola infection find it difficult to persuade people to take the disease seriously.

One is Étienne Ezo, a nurse who contracted Ebola earlier this year.

He told me that many people ask why he survived and others didn’t.

“Some say that health workers have been paid off, which is why so many people are dying. Others claim that medical staff are actually killing people,” Ezo said. This is the kind of misinformation that he and others battle.

Journalists are not spared. At times, people accused us of being part of a conspiracy to invent the disease. Once, an angry crowd gathered outside a health center where we planned to report. Its director told us to come back another day.

And yet, life goes on

People are learning to adjust to the outbreak even as it grows.

At bars, face masks, temperature checks and socially distanced dancing are now part of a night out. Weddings have continued, with veils replacing face masks. At churches, attendants in nurse-like white gowns marked with red crosses hand out Communion wafers.

And during a World Cup match between Congo and Portugal, hundreds of fans embraced and cheered on the team at bars and roadside viewing areas, overjoyed at Congo’s first World Cup showing in over half a century.

For a few hours, for all of us, social distancing gave way to celebration.

Justin Kabumba is a journalist based in Goma, eastern Congo. He and Sawasawa are isolating after returning from Ituri.

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