In Butembo, North Kivu, men armed with bladed weapons abducted two people during the night of Monday 15 to Tuesday 16 June from the Mutiri Adventist Hospital in the Wanamahika health area of the Katwa health zone; one of them had tested positive for the Ebola virus.

Among those abducted were Ms Zawadi Manacée and her daughter Christelle Kavugho, who tested positive, according to a statement from the North Kivu Provincial Ebola Response Coordination Unit, which described the men as being “very angry”.

The response coordination team is therefore calling on anyone who may have information about the two abducted individuals to contact the health or security services, with a view to locating Christelle Kavugho – not only to ensure she receives treatment, but above all to break the chain of transmission.

“A month after the outbreak was declared, the disease is spreading faster than the response,” says Kate White, MSF’s emergency medical coordinator in the DRC, in a statement.

At the epicenter of the outbreak, a tense atmosphere prevails. In some areas, it is often a game of cat and mouse. Even before making the headlines over Ebola, the region was already known as one of the El Dorados of Congolese artisanal gold mining. Chinese, Indians, Arabs, Europeans and people of other nationalities were all trading in gold there.

Part of the population finds it hard to believe in the virus’s animal origin, suspecting instead that it was fabricated from scratch to scare off financial partners and exterminate the Congolese population. This false and harmful perception exacerbates the threat posed by the virus’s spread.

“We’ve had several disasters here, including the displacement of people, but no one came to help us. Yet now that Ebola – their creation – has arrived, they’re equipping hospitals and building an Ebola Treatment Centre. Don’t you see that this is suspicious?” Viviane, a resident of Mungwalu, told me.

The latest images on social media show people fighting to recover the body of someone who had tested positive and died. Young people are wary of the police.

This highlights the difficulty people face in accessing accurate information, particularly those living in rural areas. Local organizations complain of a lack of resources for their operations, despite being on another significant front in raising awareness. They are the ones who know the language and the context and are credible because they have spent all their time alongside their communities.

However, poor fundraising means that these organizations do not receive the grants needed to tackle rumors and misinformation about this disease.

Written by Akilimali Chomachoma, in Mungwalu

Caption: People working at night in the neighborhood of Bunia, Ituri. Photo by Akilimali Chomachoma

Caption: A team of SOFEPADI educating people in the village of Katona, Djugu territory. Photo by Akilimali Chomachoma