Emery Makumeno BBC Africa, Kinshasa
(BBC) – Fear has gripped Ebola-hit areas in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo as the suspected number of deaths continues to rise, as officials say they are struggling to catch up to an outbreak that may have previously been spreading undetected.
“Ebola has tortured us,” says a taxi rider in his late twenties in the gold-mining town of Rwampara.
“I am scared because people are dying very fast… We are really afraid.”
Following a visit to Ituri province, the epicentre of the outbreak, over the weekend, Congolese Health Minister Dr Samuel Roger Kamba acknowledged health teams were playing catch-up with the virus, which may have been circulating earlier than first detected on 24 April.
The presumed patient zero is a nurse who died in the provincial capital Bunia, but was buried in Mongwalu, also a gold-mining town. Most of the suspected cases and deaths have been reported there and in neighbouring Rwampara.
Rwampara resident Fred Kiza told the BBC that “there is fear”, which he calls “normal when there’s a disease like this.”
“It would be good if they gave us masks to protect ourselves.”
