Battling a Deadly Ebola Outbreak in Eastern Congo

Health care workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo are racing to open new Ebola treatment centers and expand testing, even as years of war leave the virus only one of many challenges. At one of four treatment centers in Bunia, a 48-year-old mother of five arrived feeling unwell at a facility built less than 24 hours earlier; as staff wheeled her to the isolation unit she had a seizure and medics waited for her to stabilize before testing.

Doctors will not know if she is positive for several hours, an improvement from two weeks ago when testing was concentrated 1,000 miles away in Kinshasa and diagnoses were delayed for days. Reporters witnessed laboratory workers in Bunia test for the rare Ebola species driving the outbreak that has killed more than 200 people.

Lab staff said they were surprised by the speed of the outbreak, struggled with a backlog and increased capacity from about 36 samples per day to roughly 372.

Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bunia, Eastern Congo

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