BUNIA, Congo – Mourners gathered Friday to bury a 6‑month‑old girl who died of Ebola earlier this week, marking the third child death at an orphanage in eastern Congo amid difficulties contained in the current outbreak.
Carrying a cross, people stood at a safe distance while a small coffin was lowered into the ground by masked and gloved health workers, and a Catholic priest offered prayers over the deceased.
“It is a profound sorrow that we have lost one of our own, a daughter of the community,” said Father Innocent Ndogo.
“As ever, the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.”
Ituri, the epicenter of the current outbreak, has accounted for more than 90% of total cases. The response has been hampered by clashes between residents and healthcare teams over burial protocols, and at times the response has been militarized.
The impersonal nature of safe burial practices and the severity of the epidemic were evident on Friday, as only health workers in protective gear were authorized to handle the coffin and conduct the burial.
Bundibugyo, the Ebola strain in this outbreak, has no approved treatment or vaccine. Even health workers report shortages of masks, gloves and other protective equipment.
With 894 confirmed cases and more than 200 deaths to date, the current outbreak is roughly three times larger than the 2000 Uganda outbreak and poses a risk to about 35,000 suspected contacts, according to Africa’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. It remains less lethal than the 2014 outbreak that claimed over 11,000 lives.
The lack of early testing for the Bundibugyo strain has been cited as a key reason for its widespread transmission. In contrast, the Zaire virus—which has a vaccine—has been responsible for most of Congo’s previous 16 outbreaks.
Alex Lock, a Communications Officer at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, urged the community to resist indifference.
“She was a baby, with a lifetime ahead. Unfortunately, the disease took her, a disease that, as you know, is transmitted from person to person,” said Lock.
Although concentrated in Ituri, cases have also been documented in North Kivu and South Kivu provinces and have extended across the border into Uganda, where 19 confirmed cases and two deaths have been reported.
