Deadly Ebola Surge Overwhelms Mongbwalu as Healthcare Crisis Deepens Amid Community Resistance

Test kits for this strain of the disease are extremely scarce, and there is no triage station, leaving arriving patients who may have Ebola at risk of infecting others. The hospital director, Dr. Richard Lokudu, explained that test results from the regional capital—about 50 miles away—take four days or more to arrive, making immediate diagnosis nearly impossible.

By the time results return, many patients have already died.

“I’ve been telling people that we need results immediately,” Dr. Lokudu said.

Wailing frequently interrupted his office work. Multiple times daily, news of an Ebola patient’s death triggers emotional outbursts, with relatives screaming, gesturing, and lying on the grass. Dr. Lokudu kept a tally in his notebook: at least 30 patients had died at the hospital over the previous 12 days, while many more perished at home across the town.

Beyond the hospital gates, residents were gripped by fear and confusion. Mongbwalu had escaped the last Ebola outbreak, which began in nearby Ituri in 2018 and lasted until 2020. Now, facing a sudden surge in deaths, many refused to accept the virus was real and turned their anger toward Mongbwalu General, which has 135 beds.

Some believed the outbreak was a money-making scheme by Congolese doctors and foreign aid workers. Others blamed a curse. Doctors note that Ebola’s early symptoms mirror malaria or typhoid, so by the time patients reach the hospital, they are often critically ill and die quickly—fueling suspicion and distrust.

An angry crowd gathered outside the hospital’s front gate, where armed soldiers stood guard. “Killers!” they shouted at our arrival, mistaking us for foreign aid workers.

Two nights earlier, assailants had burned down an isolation ward the day after Doctors Without Borders put it up. In the chaos, 18 suspected Ebola patients fled their beds and disappeared into town, potentially spreading the virus further.

A smashed window marked a four-wheel-drive vehicle parked outside Dr. Lokudu’s office. A day earlier, angry residents had chased him through the hospital grounds, hurling rocks, he said.

“We really are in a terrible crisis,” he said. “We’re here to save them. They think we want to kill them.”

Fruit bats, which scientists believe are a natural reservoir for the Bundibugyo virus, roost in large numbers in trees on the town’s edge, introducing the risk of transmission.

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