More than one hundred days have passed since the Ebola outbreak was declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and still the disease is carving its way through families and neighborhoods. In that time, more than 2,500 people have died. These are not just statistics. They are mothers, fathers, children, friends, and neighbors whose deaths have left entire communities in mourning. In the middle of this storm are Red Cross volunteers, more than 900 of them, moving through towns and villages, doing everything they can to slow the spread of the virus. They have reached more than 100,000 people with information, with care, and with the simple but radical act of showing up. But what these volunteers find at doorsteps and in marketplaces is as dangerous as the disease itself: misinformation. The Ebola virus is deadly, but it is not the only thing spreading. Rumors, suspicion, fear, and false stories move quickly, often faster than ambulances, and they are undermining the very response meant to save lives. In communities across the DRC, Red Cross volunteers are not only fighting Ebola; they are fighting rumors, half-truths, and the deep mistrust that has taken root. They are trying to be both health workers and truth-tellers, often at great personal risk. The outbreak is not just a medical emergency. It is a crisis of confidence, and unless that crisis is addressed, no amount of protective equipment or treatment beds will be enough to end the outbreak for good.
Trust is the invisible vaccine in any disease outbreak. Without it, people do not seek help when they first feel symptoms. They do not follow public health advice. They do not report cases, and they do not support measures designed to stop transmission. When fear takes hold, misinformation can spread just as quickly as the virus itself, and the consequences are deadly. Our colleagues on the ground hear directly from communities about their lack of trust in the organizations and institutions trying to protect them. They see families refusing care, patients fleeing treatment centers, and people denying that Ebola even exists. It would be easy to dismiss these reactions as ignorance, but that would be a mistake. This is fear, and fear is not stupid. For many people in the DRC, Ebola remains terrifying and poorly understood. The disease appears suddenly, moves through families, and prevents the rituals that have comforted grieving people for generations. It is entirely understandable that people are afraid, and it is entirely predictable that they would turn to familiar voices and old beliefs when outsiders arrive with warnings and restrictions. Trust cannot be ordered into existence. It cannot be imposed from above. It must be built slowly, one conversation at a time, by people who are willing to listen before they speak. And in communities where trust has been broken by decades of neglect, by broken promises, and by experiences of being treated as subjects rather than partners, building that trust is even harder. The result is a dangerous gap between what public health experts know and what ordinary people are willing to accept.
The cost of this mistrust can be seen in heartbreaking and sometimes violent ways. Twelve Red Cross colleagues have been attacked and injured while doing their jobs. Ambulances have been damaged. Emergency response equipment has been destroyed. Some of these attacks have taken place while volunteers were trying to conduct safe and dignified burials. These burials are essential to stopping the outbreak. The bodies of people who died from Ebola are highly infectious, and touching them can spread the virus to mourners and, from there, to entire communities. But many families do not understand this, or do not believe it. They only know that they are being told they cannot touch their loved one one last time, cannot prepare the body the way their culture demands, cannot mourn in the way they always have. It is understandably traumatic for the recently bereaved to feel that they are being denied the chance to say goodbye. Without trust and understanding, safe burial measures can look less like protection and more like an attack on culture and tradition. Volunteers have learned that they cannot simply tell people what to do. During the 2018 outbreak, Red Cross volunteers went door to door, hosted radio talk shows, and organized community events. They listened to concerns and answered questions patiently, again and again. Over time, community resistance to safe and dignified burials dropped drastically, and that change helped stop the spread of the disease. The lesson was clear: effective humanitarian action is done with communities, not to communities.
Today, colleagues in the DRC are using that lesson. After hearing from families, they changed the body bags they use. The bags now have a clear panel over the face, so that families can see their loved one, can begin to grieve, and can trust that the person they loved is being handled with respect. It was a small, simple change, but it made a profound difference. It showed that the responders had heard the community’s pain and were willing to adapt. It showed that dignity mattered as much as safety. That is what trust looks like in practice. It is not a slogan or a public relations campaign. It is a decision to treat people as partners, not problems. The Red Cross of the DRC has about 900 volunteers who are at the heart of this effort. They are not outsiders flown in from another country. They are part of the very communities they serve. They know long before anyone else the concerns, rumors, and fears circulating among local people. They hear whispers in the market, at water points, and in the evenings when families gather. They are trusted not because they wear a uniform, but because they have lived alongside their neighbors for years, shared their joys and their hardships, and stayed when others left. These volunteers have risked catching the very disease they are fighting to stop. In May, before the outbreak had even been identified, three DRC Red Cross colleagues died from Ebola. They are among the first known victims of this outbreak. Their sacrifice is a reminder that the people on the front lines are not faceless aid workers. They are neighbors, parents, and community members who choose to serve, even when it costs them everything.
But volunteers cannot do this alone. Their work has been made more difficult by reductions in aid funding. Less funding means fewer resources for healthcare systems, which means less capacity to identify and respond to Ebola outbreaks quickly. It also means that years of trust-building can be undermined in an instant when institutions disappear, when promised services never arrive, or when people feel abandoned by the same authorities asking them to change their lives. Funding cuts do not just reduce budgets. They send a message. And that message is heard by communities who are already skeptical of outsiders. This is why the fight against Ebola is also a fight against misinformation, and why misinformation must be treated as the public health emergency that it is. Governments, technology companies, and humanitarian agencies must recognize that in a crisis, trustworthy information is a matter of life and death. Tech platforms, in particular, have a responsibility to prioritize authoritative information from trusted actors, rather than letting algorithms amplify fear and falsehood. Policymakers need to monitor and regulate misinformation without waiting until it has already cost lives. Humanitarian actors must be ready to detect harmful narratives and respond to them quickly, honestly, and with empathy. And all of these efforts must be done with communities, not to them. People are not empty vessels waiting to be filled with correct information. They are active participants in their own survival. When communities are listened to, respected, and supported, they become messengers of truth themselves. A rumor stopped by a trusted neighbor is far more powerful than a warning issued by a distant official.
To stop this outbreak, and to prevent the next one, we need to invest in building trust. This takes time. It requires honesty, patience, and humility. It means admitting when we do not have all the answers, and it means being willing to listen to fears that may seem irrational from the outside but are deeply real to the people who carry them. It means showing up again and again, even when it is difficult, even when volunteers are attacked, even when progress is slow. But this investment will save lives. Every time a family allows a safe and dignified burial, every time a rumor is answered with truth from a trusted voice, every time someone seeks help early instead of hiding in fear, the virus loses a small battle. The outbreak in the DRC is far from over, and the pain is far from finished. But the path forward is not mysterious. It is found in the relationships between volunteers and their neighbors, in the small acts of listening and respect, and in the simple belief that every person deserves to be treated with dignity. That is what the Red Cross volunteers in the DRC are doing, and that is what the rest of us must support. The bullets and the body counts make the headlines, but the real story of this outbreak is being written in quiet conversations, in open windows on body bags, in the courage of volunteers who keep showing up. They are proof that trust is not a luxury. It is a lifesaving necessity. And it is the only way we will ever end this outbreak for good.