Sunlight filters through the window, but in Jeanne’s memory the day is dark. She is in Bunia, a city in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ituri province, and she is speaking about the worst moment of her life. Her son was six years old, with a laugh that could fill the whole house and a way of running that made her heart soar. The ordeal began with a fever and vomiting—symptoms so common that any mother would first think of malaria. Jeanne gave him medicine from the pharmacy, the same syrup she had used before. She waited. But the boy did not improve; instead, he grew paler, more distant. Around her, whispers became roaring warnings: at the hospital, doctors would give her child “bad injections” and he would die. Ebola, they said, was a commercial scheme invented by people who wanted money; treatment centres were rooms of no return. Fear entered her chest and stayed there, like a stone. She did not go to a clinic. Instead, she carried her son to a man her family had trusted for years, a traditional healer. “I had hope because he had treated our family for a long time,” she says, as if that hope still lives in her. The healer did everything he could, but the child’s body grew weaker and more feverish. When the healer finally advised her to take the boy to a health facility, it was no longer enough. Her son arrived in critical condition. Within forty-eight hours, he was gone. Now, Jeanne sits in the same room where she tells this story and makes a choice every day: to keep living, and to keep warning. She wants parents to know that fear is a bad guide and that waiting is a dangerous medicine. That is why she agreed to open her story to the world.
Jeanne’s actions are easy to judge from the outside, but impossible to judge from inside her world. Eastern DRC has been shaped by decades of conflict, displacement and broken promises. Many communities have learned to be wary of uniforms, institutions and vaccinations. In this atmosphere, disinformation spreads like a shadow. People said that Ebola did not exist, that health workers invented it to collect money, that patients who entered a treatment centre would only exit in a coffin. These were not idle lies. They were tools that preyed on a mother’s protective instinct. Social media groups, neighbourhood gossip and even religious gatherings carried the same frightening message: keep your children away from hospitals. For Jeanne, the traditional healer was not a superstition. He was a known, familiar figure who had helped her family through illness and hardship. She trusted him because trust is built on memory, not on uniforms. Her son’s condition continued to worsen. The healer, to his credit, recognized that his remedies were no longer enough and told her to go to a health facility. It was a verdict disguised as advice. By then, the boy was in serious danger. “It was truly painful to lose my child. I deeply regret not going quickly to the health centre,” Jeanne says, her voice cracking. She repeats the phrase “I regret” several times, as if the words might undo the past. They cannot. But they carry a lesson that is larger than one mother’s mistake: information is not abstract. It is life or death, and the fear of being harmed can be just as deadly as any virus.
Jeanne’s tragedy is not a personal failing. It is a failure of the information environment around her. Salif Diarra, a social listening analyst at the World Health Organization, understands this better than most. “This mother wanted to protect her child. But rumours fueled fear that influenced her decision. When a family sees the treatment centre as a threat, they may hesitate to seek help, even as their loved one’s condition deteriorates,” he says. That is why WHO and health authorities have built a system to listen as carefully as they speak. Social listening teams monitor television, radio, social networks and the toll-free number 151. They collect the questions, false claims and anxieties that shape community behaviour. Between May and September 2026, they analyzed more than 34,650 items of online content—an enormous archive of hope and fear. Three times a week, Ministry of Health and WHO teams sit together and review these findings. They do not judge the people who spread rumours. They ask a different question: what is this rumour telling us about fear? The answer guides the response. If a community believes that treatment centres are dangerous, a radio story about protective equipment is not enough. People need to hear from someone they trust, not from a distant official. Diarra calls it “social listening” because it is not just monitoring; it is an act of respect. It means opening a space for communities to say what they believe and to be heard before being told they are wrong. Every rumour is a symptom of a deeper anxiety, and every response must treat the anxiety, not just the rumour. Only then can the truth begin to compete with fear.
The listening has led to creative, concrete action. In Rwampara health zone, demystification sessions were organized so families could visit or learn about treatment centres from the inside. Health workers explained why patients receive injections, what protective clothing does, and how an Ebola ward saves lives rather than ending them. WHO, with partners, trained 100 traditional healers, 20 social media influencers and 150 hotline operators. The decision to include traditional healers was particularly important. These healers are not outsiders who compete with medicine; they are trusted elders whose advice often shapes a family’s decision. By equipping them with accurate knowledge, the response turned former obstacles into bridges. In Ituri province, community dialogues have broken down resistance in areas that seemed sealed off. Frédérick Mungobijira, head of infodemic management in Ituri, recalls the health area of Katogu, where rumours had made response teams unwelcome. “We organized community dialogues with local leaders to explain the disease and fight misinformation. After these exchanges, response teams were able to access communities that had previously been hostile,” he says. Since the start of the outbreak, more than 1,000 rumours have been addressed in Ituri. Each response is like a needle pulling apart a knot: a false accusation is answered, a question is given an honest reply, a mother’s worry is acknowledged. The aim is not to silence people but to save them. Slowly, the message is getting through: a health centre is not a place where children go to die; it is the only place where they have a real chance to live.
For Jeanne, healing has continued in a small room with a psychologist. After her son’s death, she was swallowed by grief and guilt. She needed not only medicine for the body but care for the mind. The WHO psychologist meets her regularly, listens to her, and helps her carry a burden that seemed too heavy for one soul. “The psychologist helps me a lot. He listens, advises and supports me. Today, I feel better,” she says. Sitting beside her, her sister nods. She, too, has felt the weight of the same rumours. “Some people said it was dangerous to take a sick person to the hospital, that they might never return alive. Today, we stay close to our sister, listen to her and encourage her to overcome this ordeal. We are all deeply affected. The little one was full of life,” she says. The family’s presence is its own kind of therapy, a quiet declaration that Jeanne is not blamed and not alone. Diarra argues that communities must receive the same kind of gentle attention. “Reliable information must be accessible, understandable and delivered by people communities trust. We must listen to families’ fears and respond with respect,” he says. Respect means not treating people as ignorant for believing a rumour. It means recognizing that rumours are often the only answer to the question a family could not ask aloud: who will save my child? In Jeanne’s case, that question came too late. But her journey from fear to testimony shows that trust, once broken, can be rebuilt—one conversation, one demonstration, one shared silence at a time.
Jeanne has chosen not to stay hidden in her grief. She speaks publicly, through health workers and community meetings, even though her voice still shakes. Her message is simple and urgent. “I ask all parents not to believe disinformation. As soon as a child is sick, you must go quickly to a health centre to receive appropriate care. I would not want another mother to live what I have lived,” she says. There is power in those words. They are not the words of a politician or an international expert, but of a mother who learned the hardest lesson imaginable. In Bunia and across Ituri, other mothers are still making the same choice she faced. They fear hospitals, distrust injections, and wonder whether Ebola is a lie. The response teams continue to listen, train, explain and support, because they know that a child’s life often depends on what a mother believes. The fight against Ebola is not only a fight against a virus. It is a fight against the silence and the whispering that make parents hesitate. Jeanne’s testimony is a reminder that truth must be delivered with warmth and patience, by people who understand the community’s pain. She will never see her son laugh again. But if her words reach one frightened parent, one mother who pushes aside fear and picks up her child from the mat and walks to a health centre, then her son’s death will not have been entirely without meaning. That is the hope she carries. That is why she speaks. And in that sense, love remains stronger than the fear that tried to rule her.