Something is off in the DRC. The Ebola outbreak that emerged in Mbandaka two weeks ago is behaving strangely. It is not following the usual patterns. Cases are popping up in places that should be safe. Health workers are scratching their heads. The virus is spreading despite contact tracing and ring vaccination.
The numbers tell the story. Forty-two confirmed cases in three regions. But the genomic data shows multiple introductions. This is not a single chain of transmission. It is a starburst pattern. The virus is jumping. How?
I spoke to a senior WHO official this morning. Off the record, of course. He said the quiet part loud. “We are missing something. Maybe more than one thing.” The failure of containment in a place like Mbandaka, a city of 1.2 million with a river port and an airport, is dangerous. The clock is ticking.
Theories are thin on the ground. Some whisper about waterborne transmission. Ebola is not supposed to spread that way. But the Congo River is the lifeblood of the region. People drink from it. Wash in it. Could the virus be hiding in water? The evidence is not there. Yet.
Others point to persistent reservoirs. The usual suspects: fruit bats, primates. But the sequencing suggests human-to-human transmission is driving this. So why is it slipping through the net? The answer might be political. The election season is heating up in Kinshasa. Local leaders are distracted. The health ministry is in chaos.
A contact of mine in the provincial health team put it bluntly: “We are fighting a fire with water pistols while the politicians argue about who gets credit.” The trust deficit is real. Communities are not coming forward. They are hiding cases. Fear of authorities runs deep. Worse, some believe the vaccines are a foreign plot.
One statistic is telling: in the current outbreak, 30% of cases are children under five. That is unusually high. It suggests community transmission among the most vulnerable. But why? The standard containment model assumes adults are the primary spreaders. If children are driving transmission, then schools and playgrounds become risk zones.
I have a sense of déjà vu. In 2019, a similar outbreak in eastern Congo spun out of control for months. The difference was insecurity: armed groups disrupted response. This time, the threat is more insidious: a silent failure of basic public health. The bureaucracy is ossified. The response is slow.
The real story is the scramble behind the scenes. The CDC has quietly sent a team. The UK is offering logistical support. But the key player is the DRC government. President Tshisekedi needs a win. An uncontrolled outbreak would be a political disaster. Sources say he has demanded daily briefings.
Let me be blunt: this story is going to get worse before it gets better. The containment window is closing. The next two weeks are critical. If the virus reaches Kinshasa, a city of 15 million, the whole continent will be on edge. The WHO is planning for that scenario, but nobody says it aloud.
For now, the outbreak remains classified as a “public health emergency of international concern” Watch this space. I will have more when my sources inside the command centre talk.
