Mistrust Spreads With the Ebola Virus in Congo

Another mother is grieving at the main hospital in Mongbwalu, believed to be ground zero of Congo’s most recent Ebola outbreak. She’s alone and overwhelmed. We’re told her 26-year-old daughter has just died of suspected Ebola. The woman wants to be close to her child. Yet with this virus, even that can be dangerous. People who die from Ebola remain highly infectious. That’s why burial teams are trained to handle them in protective gear, to disinfect the body and keep families from touching the dead. But those rules are breaking down. People are angry and afraid. Health workers have been threatened, and some even attacked. Part of what’s driving the mistrust is that the disease is unfamiliar here. With no approved vaccine or treatment, many patients die despite receiving care. Some people here aren’t even convinced the disease is real. As deaths mount, trust in the response remains fragile. As a mototaxi driver, he fears possible contagion from his customers, as well as the broader mistrust growing in the community. This is the first emergency delivery flown in by international aid organizations. Hygiene kits and desperately needed medical supplies are headed for the hospital treating suspected Ebola patients. Ethnic militias and rebel groups in the region make it difficult to move around, and with the added tension within the town, the government doesn’t take any chances. As the supplies reach the hospital, so does a family that’s come to collect the body of Bienfaits Marasto. Doctors say he died of Ebola, but without a confirmed test, the family is in doubt. Marasto, who was filmed by The New York Times just days before he died, worked as the hospital’s lab technician. His sister says his symptoms did not appear to be serious. She says he came to the hospital because he assumed his colleagues would save him. Her grief has become doubt. And in Mongbwalu, that doubt is just one more thing helping Ebola spread.