The Violence That's Helping Ebola Spread in Eastern Congo

Health workers are being attacked, treatment centres are being burned, and the virus is slipping through the gaps. The Africa CDC says the response is falling dangerously behind.

NAIROBI, Kenya - The numbers coming out of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo are difficult to process. Since the DRC declared its Ebola outbreak in mid-May, more than 11,000 people have been infected and over 5,400 have died. But the virus itself is only part of the problem. The people trying to stop it are being targeted.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) says it has recorded 31 security incidents against healthcare workers and medical facilities in the past six months. Four were armed attacks. Sixteen were assaults on Ebola responders. Eleven facilities were burned or otherwise destroyed. The agency calls it one of the greatest obstacles to containing the outbreak.

The Attack That Broke the Response

The worst incident happened last week in Cantine-Aloya, a village in Beni territory, North Kivu Province. Fighters linked to the Islamic State suspected to be members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) killed 66 civilians, including three health workers. They burned three health facilities to the ground.

The fallout was immediate. More than 1,000 contacts of confirmed Ebola cases were lost to follow-up. Three confirmed cases remain unaccounted for after fleeing the burned treatment centres. "This is what makes the virus stay ahead of us and makes our response lag behind," Wessam Mankoula, an Africa CDC official, told reporters this week. Two weeks earlier, a nurse was killed and another health worker badly injured while responding to an Ebola alert in Tshopo province.

Why This Makes the Outbreak Harder to Stop

Ebola containment depends on a fragile chain of actions. Health teams must identify cases, trace everyone they came into contact with, and monitor those contacts for 21 days. When health workers are attacked and treatment centres are burned, that chain breaks.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the Cantine-Aloya attack as both a humanitarian emergency and a significant setback, writing on X that "insecurity is now one of the greatest obstacles to the Ebola response in the DRC." The Africa CDC has warned that attacks on health workers, facilities, and burial teams are compounding already severe gaps in contact tracing, allowing the virus to spread undetected through communities that have fled in fear.

Landry Dongmo Tsague, director of Africa CDC's Center for Primary Health Care, said the insecurity is also undermining recent progress in community-led contact tracing. The agency is calling for peace and security corridors so responders can operate safely.

Why Neighbours Are Watching

This is not just the DRC's problem. Since May, the virus has spread from three health zones to 67 health zones across eight provinces. The outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, one of the deadliest strains of Ebola, and the DRC remains the epicentre of a multi-country outbreak.

Uganda, Rwanda, and South Sudan are watching closely. Eastern DRC shares porous borders with several nations, and the movement of people across those borders has historically played a role in regional spread. The ADF's presence in North Kivu and Ituri provinces complicates border surveillance and limits contact tracing in border communities.

The Africa CDC is working with the African Union to bolster protection for frontline responders. But the fundamental challenge remains. "These security incidents need to stop," Mankoula said. "Peace and security corridors need to be available for our responders in the field."

Until then, the Ebola response in eastern Congo remains a race against both a deadly pathogen and the violence that surrounds it.