The numbers coming out of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo are staggering, but behind the statistics are real people struggling to survive an enemy they cannot see. Five months after authorities confirmed the country’s seventeenth Ebola outbreak, the virus is still moving through rainforests, mining camps, and displaced communities with devastating speed. More than 9,000 confirmed cases and over 4,300 deaths have been recorded, and the affected territory, according to Pierre-Oliver Ngadjole, a doctor and nutritionist with the Swiss aid organisation Medair, is larger than Switzerland itself. The epicentre is in Ituri province, but North Kivu and Haut-Uélé are also suffering. For Ngadjole, who works on the ground in the city of Bunia, the scale is overwhelming. But what keeps him going is the understanding that each case is a person—a father, a mother, a child—caught in a crisis that has been shaped by geography, poverty, mistrust, and decades of war. The outbreak is not simply a medical emergency; it is a human tragedy unfolding in one of the most difficult and neglected corners of the world.
At the Ebola treatment centre in Katwa, near Butembo, the grim reality is written on the ward walls. Of the 252 patients admitted so far, more than 70 have died. Ngadjole insists that the virus itself is not the only killer. The real problem is that people arrive too late. In the remote communities where Ebola is spreading, distance is a matter of life and death. The roads are nearly impassable, especially during the rainy season when even motorbikes cannot get through. Some patients must travel for days, crossing as many as seven rivers, just to reach a hospital. With little transport available and no money for the journey, families often turn to home remedies, hoping that rest, prayer, or traditional medicine will see them through. By the time they decide to seek help, the virus has often already done its damage. The hardest-hit group is men and women between the ages of 15 and 49, many of whom work in informal mining camps where the virus spreads quickly in cramped, unsanitary conditions. Young children are also frequently infected, usually within their own homes. The tragedy is that many of these deaths could have been prevented with earlier care—intravenous fluids, electrolytes, and supportive treatment that gives the body a fighting chance.
But even when people understand that they need help, there are forces pushing them away. At the start of the outbreak, a deadly rumour took hold: that there was no vaccine, no cure, and no reason to go to hospital. The message was catastrophic, Ngadjole says, because it destroyed people’s willingness to seek treatment. It is true that no approved vaccine exists for the specific strain of the virus, known as Bundibugyo, that is causing this epidemic. But early medical care can dramatically improve survival odds, and isolation in a treatment centre breaks the chain of transmission. The problem, however, is not simply medical. The region is deeply insecure, with armed militias operating in the area. People infected with Ebola fear being attacked on the way to hospital, and many families choose to stay home rather than risk violence. Religious leaders have also been known to urge their congregations to pray instead of seeking medical help, deepening the crisis of mistrust. To counter this, Medair has begun working with survivors of the disease, letting them tell their own stories to hesitant communities. There is something powerful in hearing a person who has been through Ebola say, “I trusted the doctors, and I am still alive.” It is a slow, painstaking process, but it is one of the most effective tools they have.
The difficulty of wrestling the outbreak under control is not lost on experts beyond the ground. Xavier Lescure, a Paris-based infectious disease specialist who helps coordinate France’s epidemic risk mission and international research networks with the World Health Organization, says contact tracing is another major obstacle. To stop Ebola, every person who may have been exposed to a patient must be found and monitored. Currently, contact tracers in the DRC are reaching about 75 percent of all contacts. That is remarkable given the difficult terrain and insecurity, but it is simply not enough. Lescure says the fire cannot be put out unless they reach more than 95 percent. He also points to what he calls an “epidemic of post-truth,” where unfounded rumours and deep-seated mistrust undermine public health measures. In such an environment, facts are not enough; people need to believe in the system before they are willing to take part in it. There is hope, however, in medical research. Lescure explains that two vaccine approaches are being pursued: one is developing a vaccine specifically for the Bundibugyo strain, and the other is testing the existing rVSV vaccine, which was created for the Zaire strain of Ebola. Early scientific evidence suggests there may be cross-immunity between the strains. If the existing vaccine proves even partially effective, it could provide an immediate weapon to slow the outbreak and prevent severe cases while a more targeted solution is developed.
To understand why the outbreak is so severe, one must look at the social and economic realities of eastern DRC. The mining camps, where hundreds of thousands of people work in appalling conditions, are perfect breeding grounds for the virus. These informal mines lie deep in the rainforest, far from health services, and workers often depend on wild animals for food. Bushmeat is a primary source of Ebola transmission, and when an infected animal is caught and eaten, the virus can spread quickly through a camp. The crowded living conditions in the mines and in camps for internally displaced people make things worse, as does the legacy of conflict. The people now facing Ebola have already lived through three decades of war. Many families are deeply traumatised, having watched relatives murdered while fleeing violence. Ngadjole sees the psychological scars every day. An Ebola death, he says, is doubly devastating in this context. Traditional funeral rites are banned because of the risk of infection. The dead must be buried immediately under strict safety protocols, and all belongings—clothes, mattresses, tools, everything—must be burned. For families living in extreme poverty, this means losing their last possessions. The virus takes not only their loved ones but also their material world. Medair tries to respond to this by providing material assistance as well as medical care, offering a small measure of support to families who have lost everything.
Ultimately, the Ebola outbreak in the DRC is not just a natural disaster; it is a reflection of global choices and consumption patterns. Lescure points out that the minerals mined in the DRC end up in smartphones, computers, and countless everyday devices. The extraction of these precious resources comes at a heavy cost: overexploited lands, destroyed ecosystems, armed conflict, and suffering among local communities. Our demand for these products, he argues, is inseparable from the conditions that allow Ebola to thrive. The outbreak, in this sense, is also a moral challenge to people far away who benefit from the region’s wealth without seeing its pain. Ngadjole is clear that emergency aid is not enough. Structural change is needed across the entire mining production chain, including better hygiene, safer working conditions, and access to healthcare for workers and their families. In the meantime, Switzerland has increased its support, committing CHF 4.6 million in 2026 to the Ebola response. This funding goes primarily to the World Health Organization, emergency medical teams, laboratory capacity, and epidemiological surveillance. Swiss institutions are also cooperating with Congolese partners to monitor the virus’s genome, with Basel-based pharmaceutical company Roche providing laboratory equipment and testing methods. Swiss Solidarity has additionally allocated CHF 1.2 million to emergency relief. But the deepest needs remain structural and human: rebuilding trust, easing poverty, ending conflict, and reminding the world that a single outbreak in a distant rainforest is never truly distant. Every person who dies is someone’s family, someone’s future—and their struggle is bound to our own shared humanity.