Ebola Patients In The DRC Are Fleeing Treatment Centres in Search of Food

Ebola patients in the Democratic Republic of Congo are fleeing treatment and isolation centres in search of food, highlighting how a worsening hunger crisis is undermining efforts to contain the country’s latest outbreak.

Outbreak responders are “coming to us, knocking on our door and saying: ‘We need food assistance if we’re going to end Ebola,’” said David Stevenson, who leads the World Food Programme’s operations in Congo and has spent three decades working in humanitarian emergencies.

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Government reports have recorded more than 150 cases of patients leaving Ebola treatment and isolation facilities since late May.

In one incident, 11 suspected Ebola patients escaped from a hospital in Bambu, about 40 km from the outbreak’s epicentre near the gold-mining town of Mongbwalu, because of inadequate nutritional support, health authorities said. Other reports have linked departures to food shortages and poor living conditions.

The outbreak has infected nearly 900 people and killed more than a quarter of them, while food insecurity affecting almost 10 million people in eastern Congo is complicating efforts to isolate patients and track people who may have been exposed.

Health authorities are currently monitoring about 6,400 people who may have come into contact with Ebola patients. Families placed under observation often lose access to work, markets and other sources of income, increasing pressure on already vulnerable households.

“If you confine people, they will need to be supported with food. And if they don’t get food, they will move,” said Olivier Nkakudulu, head of field operations in Ituri province for the World Food Programme. Ituri accounts for more than 90% of confirmed Ebola cases.

The impact can be especially severe when the person isolated is the main provider for a household.

“Just imagine if we put a single mother into isolation, what will happen to the children?” said Godfrey Ayena, national director of Food for the Hungry in Uganda.

Similar challenges affect households led by children or elderly relatives, he said.

In much of eastern Congo, families traditionally provide food and support to relatives admitted to hospitals. Ebola isolation measures can abruptly cut patients off from those networks, making food assistance a critical part of outbreak control.

The United Nations food agency is now providing hot meals at Ebola treatment centres and delivering food supplies to patients, people under observation and affected families.

This week, 590 hot meals were distributed in a single day to suspected and confirmed patients, contacts under monitoring and caregivers.

Health workers said they had encountered similar problems during previous outbreaks.

“When people don’t have food, it causes them to be desperate,” said Kenneth Kobba, a Ugandan public health physician preparing to deploy to eastern Congo for his fourth Ebola response.

During Uganda’s 2022 Ebola outbreak, Kobba said some people repeatedly went to treatment facilities claiming symptoms because meals were available there, potentially exposing themselves to infection.

“Someone will come and tell you I have fever and headache,” he said. By the time test results were returned, the person had already received several meals.

Conflict and aid cuts deepen crisis

Years of conflict in eastern Congo have disrupted farming, displaced millions of people and restricted humanitarian access. Recent reductions in aid funding have added further strain, forcing relief organisations to make difficult decisions about where to direct limited resources.

“This requires making terrible choices between the extremely hungry who are next to starvation and those who are very hungry and do not know where they’re going to get their next meal,” Stevenson said.

Jacques, a 52-year-old man who declined to give his surname due to security concerns, said he has relied on churches in Beni to feed his 14 children after fleeing fighting around Bukavu in South Kivu province.

More than a week ago, his five-year-old daughter began vomiting and bleeding from her ears. He took her to Beni’s main hospital, where she died hours later. His wife is now being held in isolation at the same facility after testing positive for Ebola.

Since arriving at the hospital, Jacques has received a food package from the World Food Programme.

“That’s enough for two weeks, and after that what are we going to do to eat?” he said.

The World Food Programme is seeking $175 million until November for its Congo operations, including $32 million for Ebola-related activities, Stevenson said. The agency’s budget in the country has fallen by about a third over the past two to three years.

“The need to address the wider population is crucial, and we’re just not going to be able to end Ebola unless we address those needs,” Stevenson said. “It simply will not work.”

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