Mongbwalu: Resilience in a little gold-mining town engulfed by Ebola

Editor's Note: Three months after the WHO declared an Ebola outbreak in the DRC and Uganda, communities in affected areas are still grappling with the disease.

CGTN Africa travelled to Mongbwalu, a mining town in northeastern DRC where the first cases were reported, to see how the outbreak has reshaped daily life.

Twelve weeks after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an Ebola outbreak in the northeastern province of Ituri of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), residents and medics in the gold-mining town of Mongbwalu remain resilient as they continue with efforts to contain the deadly disease.

The outbreak involves the rare Bundibugyo strain, which there is currently no approved vaccine or treatment.

The strain has spread faster than any of the country's 16 previous Ebola outbreaks.

This has made the Ebola outbreak the largest on record in the DRC.

As of August 12, the DRC had registered over 4,400 confirmed cases of Ebola and more than 2,000 deaths, most of them in Ituri.

Mongbwalu, a town of 140,000 perched on one of the region's goldfields, is one of the epicenters engulfed by the outbreak.

Here, local health workers are waging daily battles against one of deadliest viruses known to man.

The spread is fanned by numerous factors, including a highly-mobile mining labor force, a large number of people displaced by armed violence in Ituri, and inadequate health infrastructure.

Aid funding cuts by some key Western donors have also crippled mitigation operations, while healthcare workers have periodically staged strikes over delayed wages.

At times, hostile crowds have even targeted treatment centres and medical personnel, disrupting intervention measures.

"If you attack a health center or healthcare workers, even symptomatic people outside become afraid to come in for treatment," warned Dieudonne Amboko, a nurse in Mongbwalu, who called for improved security for health facilities and workers.

During a recent visit to the town, DRC Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka advised that, "without community engagement, we cannot eradicate this disease." Despite these challenges, patients are recovering, giving hopes to hundreds of others blighted by the disease.