Why the Ebola Outbreak Has Been Nearly Impossible to Stop
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm Katrin Benhold, host of The World, a daily newsletter from The New York Times. I spent 20 years reporting from more than a dozen countries, and it occurred to me one day, what kind of newsletter would I like to read? I don't live in the U.S. I want something especially for a global audience. The World is just that. Each weekday morning, we bring you the biggest stories, dispatches from my colleagues on the ground, and a few surprises. With video, too. The World Newsletter. Read the latest and sign up at nytimes.com slash the world.
From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitroff. This is The Daily.
At the front lines of the Ebola crisis in Central Africa, badly equipped health workers with little outside support are losing the fight against one of the worst outbreaks in history. Today, my colleague Declan Walsh takes us to the epicenter of the virus to understand why, so far, its spread has been nearly impossible to stop. It's Wednesday, June 3rd. Declan, thank you so much for doing this. Where are you right now?
I'm in Bunya, a city in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Okay. So you've been in the DRC for about a week and a half covering this horrific Ebola outbreak. So just tell us what you're seeing, what it's been like on the ground.
It's a really dire situation here right now. This outbreak was only detected just over two weeks ago, but the virus was probably spreading for two, some groups are saying even three months before it was detected. And so we just don't know how deep, how wide it has gotten into the population in these areas. And that's really hampered efforts, not just to treat the people affected by the disease, but to contain its spread.
And in terms of numbers, cases, deaths, where do things stand?
So far, about 250 people are confirmed to have died. There are about another 1,100 suspected cases. But the true spread and extent of this virus is thought to be much, much wider than that. And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the virus is way ahead of the response at this point. Already, this is the third largest Ebola outbreak on record. And there are groups saying that it has the potential to become the largest ever. Now, that's a very high bar. The largest Ebola outbreak was between 2014 and 2016 in West Africa. That killed 11,000 people. We're far off those numbers. But the fact that the response is so far behind the curve makes it obviously much, much harder to start to push it back.
So what do we know about how this started and how it went undetected for so long?
Because of that huge delay, there's so much we still don't know. But one thing that seems to be almost certain is that this outbreak started in this gold mining town called Mongboalu. That's about 50 miles north of Bunia, of the regional capital. And so a couple of days after I got here with our photographer, Arlette Beshizi, we got in a car and we drove to Mongwalu to find not just the town where it started, but also what the response looked like in this place where, as far as we had heard, there was the greatest number of infections.
What are the current challenges faced by health workers in the Ebola outbreak?
And what did you find?
Well, first, the road to get there was quite difficult. It was really a road just to name. It was made of mud. It was extremely rough and bumpy. But all along that road, we passed these Congolese military checkpoints. And that was because we were passing through territory where at least three or four different militias were known to operate. So that was complicating the response and also preventing aid workers from getting to this town. And when we got to Mongbolo itself, we went straight to the public hospital, which we knew was the center of treatment efforts. We were expecting really to see the architecture of an Ebola response that you classically think of. For some of us, it's maybe a Hollywood reference, like movies like Outbreak and so on, these large white tents, lots of people walking around in sealed suits.
Right.
Why is the Ebola outbreak in Central Africa so difficult to contain?
But there was almost nothing. And we went into the actual Ebola wards themselves. We put on the full protective equipment.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:44
2
What are the current challenges faced by health workers in the Ebola outbreak?
3:44–4:44
3
Why is the Ebola outbreak in Central Africa so difficult to contain?
4:44–18:40
4
What factors contributed to the delayed detection of the outbreak?
18:40–19:28
5
How did the outbreak begin in Mongboalu and what was the response?
19:28–33:00