Gédéon Banga Ngbape and his team of community health workers are laboring tirelessly in eastern Congo to track the country’s fastest-growing Ebola outbreak NIZI, Congo -- Every day, community health worker Gédéon Banga Ngbape and his team fan out across communities in eastern Congo looking for people who may have crossed paths with the country’s fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history. The workers investigate dozens of alerts, search for those exposed to suspected or confirmed cases and try to get anyone showing symptoms into care before the virus spreads further. But the surveillance system is increasingly failing to keep pace with the virus.
Between 60% and 70% of new Ebola cases are being detected among people who were not already being monitored as contacts, meaning health workers may only discover infections after patients become sick and have had opportunities to expose others. This death toll has been reached almost three times faster than in the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa — the worst in history. That outbreak claimed over 11,000 lives.
Mohamed Yakub Janabi, this week. U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher on Friday announced an additional $30.5 million in emergency funding to help tackle the Ebola outbreak. In Nizi, Ngbape’s surveillance teams say they receive an average of 60 to 70 alerts a day.
They move through communities to investigate suspected infections, follow people who have been in contact with suspected or confirmed cases and direct those showing possible symptoms to health facilities. The work can stretch deep into the night. I feel really tired, but what matters to me is always being of service to the community.” He did not say how many days a week he works or how often he is able to take time off.
Community health workers who go door to door face risks of their own. Ana Ndroy Kasime, a community health worker in Nizi, said she visits homes to educate residents about Ebola and reports suspected cases to health officials. But she said workers like her lack basic protective supplies.
There are no approved vaccines or treatments for the Bundibugyo virus, though trials are underway. Strikes by some unpaid health workers, threats by rebel groups, anger from long-traumatized communities and misinformation asserting that Ebola isn’t real have significantly hindered the response. The gaps are especially consequential in Nizi, one of the most affected health zones in Ituri province, which accounts for about 90% of Congo’s Ebola cases and 80% of its deaths.
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