DRC Displacement Camps Struggle to Contain Ebola Outbreak

By Al Mayadeen English

Source: Reuters

14 Jun 2026 20:11

Health authorities in eastern DRC are losing ground against an Ebola outbreak in overcrowded displacement camps.

Health authorities in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo are losing ground in their effort to contain an Ebola outbreak that has reached overcrowded displacement camps, as deep-seated distrust of government and aid workers renders contact tracing nearly impossible and leaves tens of thousands of displaced people exposed.

The breakdown is most acute in Kpangba, a camp of roughly 30,000 people in the Nizi health zone of Ituri province, where two women died of Ebola on May 31 and June 1.

When health teams from the provincial health ministry, the World Health Organization, and other aid agencies moved in to trace those who had been in contact with the deceased, residents drove them out, refusing to accept that the deaths were Ebola-related.

"Up to this day, we are not able to follow up on the contacts of these cases," Jean-Claude Lonzama, chief doctor for the Nizi health zone, told Reuters.

The failure to establish contact tracing in Kpangba has left health authorities unable to map transmission chains in a camp where sanitation infrastructure is critically inadequate, hundreds of residents share a single toilet, and open defecation is common.

A crisis across 22 camps

The problem extends far beyond one site. The Nizi health zone alone contains 22 displacement camps housing more than 81,000 people, the vast majority of them displaced by inter-ethnic violence in surrounding areas. Lonzama said that as of now, no preventive measures have been put in place across these sites beyond basic health messaging.

The outbreak, declared one month ago, has spread across three provinces, Ituri, North Kivu, and South Kivu, home to more than five million displaced people and all three scarred by decades of war. It is already among the largest Ebola outbreaks ever recorded.

Attacks on health facilities

Distrust has been compounding the crisis from the start. Several treatment facilities have come under attack from locals angered by restrictions on traditional burial practices or unconvinced that the disease is real.

The pattern echoes the 2018-2020 outbreak in the same region, during which attacks against health facilities killed more than 25 health workers.

Early breach

The situation in Kpangba was further set back by an early breach that authorities were unable to prevent. The first confirmed case, a 60-year-old woman, tested positive on May 30, but had already broken out of quarantine and could not be located before she died.

The deaths were not made public until a UN refugee agency report on June 12.

Health experts say the combination of active armed conflict, critical equipment shortages, and a population with generations of reason to distrust state institutions has placed the outlook for containment in serious doubt.