BUNAI, Congo (AP) — Aid supplies were rushed in to the center of Congo’s outbreak of a rare type of Ebola virus as beleaguered medical workers have struggled with a lack of equipment, a distrustful population and armed groups in a volatile region.
A white cargo plane on Thursday morning delivered masks, gloves, boots, and medications — all of which are in short supply — donated by the European Union to Bunia, a northeastern town at the heart of the outbreak. U.N.-branded forklifts lifted several cases into trucks.
In Bunia, Associated Press reporters saw empty emergency treatment centers, and doctors in the nearby town of Bambu using expired medical masks while tending to suspected Ebola patients.
At least three attacks have been recorded against health centers in Ituri province as residents protested stringent medical protocols that clashed with local burial rites, heightening the danger health workers face.
The aid delivery from the EU is expected to come in batches over the next eight days, Jérôme Kouachi, head of emergency operations at UNICEF in Congo, told the AP.
The director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Thursday that he was on his way to Congo to see first-hand efforts to contain the Bundibugyo virus, which has no approved treatment or vaccine. The WHO has declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, in the hope of ramping up aid.
The Congolese government has confirmed more than 1,000 suspected cases, with at least 220 deaths, since it declared an outbreak on May 15. But the virus had been spreading undetected for weeks, and the WHO suspects it is much larger than what has been reported.
The virus has also reached neighboring Uganda, which has confirmed seven cases and one death. On Wednesday, the Congolese government said the first survivor to recover from the virus had left a health center.
“We are trying to catch up,” Congo Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner said earlier this week. “It is a race against the clock.”
The response on the ground has been hampered by multiple challenges, including customs’ red tape, insufficient storage facilities, bad roads and weak telecommunications, humanitarian agencies said in a report on Thursday.
Tedros on Wednesday called for a ceasefire in a region where armed groups have staged violent attacks for decades. “We cannot build community trust or isolate the sick while bombs are falling,” he said.
Tucked in the northeastern part of Congo close to the Ugandan border, Ituri province has been reeling from attacks by the Allied Democratic Force, a rebel group allied with the Islamic State group, and a coalition of ethnic militias. In early May, the ADF killed at least 40 people and burned several homes in Ituri.
The illness has also been reported in two Congolese provinces south of Ituri — North Kivu and South Kivu, where the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group controls many key cities, including Goma and Bukavu. The rebels have reported two cases. The region’s main airport in Goma, which doubles as a staging ground for humanitarian efforts into the region, has been closed since January 2025, when M23 seized the city.
The conflict has precipitated one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, with at least 7 million people displaced in eastern Congo.
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Ope Adetayo reported from Lagos, Nigeria.
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