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| Dr. Richard Lokuda, Director of Mongbwalu General Hospital (Photo: Arlette Bashizi, New York Times) |
Great journalism does not simply report
facts and events as they occur. It allows us to understand another person's
reality, empathize with their suffering, recognize when doing nothing is no
longer an option. A well-written news story informs. It touches our emotions
and allows us to ask deeper questions. But rarely does a newspaper article leave
me sitting in silence. A story in the May 30 edition of The New York Times
is one of those rare pieces.
The Times recently sent
its chief Africa correspondent, Declan Walsh, and photographer Arlette Bashizi
to the village of Mongbwalu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This
is the epicenter of the Ebola epidemic that is spreading fear, tragedy, and
death throughout this grief-stricken region of the world. In words, photographs,
and a nine-minute video summary, the article takes you inside the understaffed
and under-resourced hospital that is trying in vain to treat growing numbers of
Ebola patients in Mongbwalu, all at great risk to the doctors, hospital staff,
and aid workers directly in harm’s way.
Accompanied by heartbreaking
photography, Walsh’s writing paints a personal, touching, and frightening story
to which the world urgently needs to respond:
In the cramped, dilapidated Ebola ward,
a 5-year-old boy languished on a bare mattress, a tissue stuffed into his nose
to stanch the incessant bleeding. His father stood over him, eyes clouded with
worry.
A few beds away lay the body of
Christiane Bahati, 21, who had died seven hours earlier but had not yet been
taken away. Her shoes were still tucked under the bed, her wailing relatives
gathered outside the ward doors.
The body, covered by a thin sheet, was
highly contagious. Yet hardly anyone in the ward was protected. Relatives came
and went, carrying food and water to ailing patients because the hospital had
none to give them. A few wore rubber gloves or pulled a scarf across their
mouths. Most had nothing at all.
In the next ward lay the hospital’s
laboratory technician, also sick. Seven other hospital workers had already died
from suspected Ebola. Few of the staff members had ever been trained to fight
the disease, and the most rudimentary equipment was in dangerously short
supply: tests, protective suits, goggles, masks, even drinking water.
Outside, the sound of hammering broke
the hushed silence. Aid workers from Doctors Without Borders were racing to
erect isolation tents and disinfection stations.
… arriving patients who do not have
Ebola risk being infected by those who do. In fact, it is hard to know who has
Ebola because test results from the regional capital, some 50 miles away, take
four days or more to arrive, said the hospital director, Dr. Richard Lokudu.
By then, many patients have already
died.
Dr. Alex Bogole, a Congolese
doctor in the hospital’s intensive care ward, expressed anger at the world’s
indifference, neglect, and inadequate response to the crisis.
The virus had been spreading for
months, virtually unimpeded, “and this is the best we can do?” he said, the
frustration pouring through his protective gear.
The medical staff at Mongbwalu
General Hospital are completely overwhelmed. Three weeks before The Times
published this story, the hospital’s anesthesiologist died. A day later, the
hospital’s surgical assistant died. Over the previous 12 days, the hospital
experienced more than 30 deaths. Many others died in their homes in Mongbwalu,
where fear, dread, and confusion overwhelm its residents.
Meanwhile, misinformation proliferated
on social media as many townspeople refused to accept that the virus was real.
They instead blame the hospital, its doctors, and staff.
Some said the outbreak was a
moneymaking plot concocted by Congolese doctors and foreign aid workers. Others
called it a curse. Often, doctors say, the early symptoms of Ebola resemble
other ailments, like malaria or typhoid, so by the time patients go to the
hospital, many are already very sick and die quickly, heightening suspicion and
distrust.
Two nights earlier, assailants had
burned down an isolation ward in the hospital, shortly after Doctors Without
Borders put it up. In the chaos, 18 patients suspected of having Ebola fled
their beds and vanished into the town, potentially spreading the virus even
more.
Fear understandably drives community
perceptions. Faced with a sudden surge of deaths, some townspeople irrationally
believe the hospital is the cause and not the solution to the outbreak. “We’re
here to save them,” the hospital director Dr. Richard Lokudu told Walsh. “They
think we want to kill them.”
Still, the medical workers and
staff risk their lives every day. This includes the doctors and their
assistants who directly care for the patients, administer intravenous fluids, monitor
vitals, help alleviate patient suffering, and wash and sanitize bottles and protective
gloves so they can be reused. It includes the Red Cross volunteers who transport
the bodies of patients who die and then attempt to enforce protocols to ensure safe
burial practices, as traditional funerals are a major vector of disease
transmission. They all contend not only with the threat of a deadly virus, but
also the possibility of attacks from their own community. They are the heroes
of this story.
The information gap between the
medical community and the general populace is one of the biggest obstacles to
stopping the spread of the virus. As seen in the photos and video
documentation, the doctors (and The Times reporter and photographer) wore
full protective suits and gear. But the family members who brought food and
water to patients were mostly unmasked and unprotected. They appeared almost unaware
of the risks while understandably preoccupied with their loved ones’ survival.
It would be wrong to dismiss the
people of Mongbwalu as ill-educated, uninformed, and ignorant. As Dr. Edward
Blau, a retired physician, explained in The Times’ comment section:
The same thing happened during the
worst of the COVID pandemic in this country during the height of the pandemic.
Frightened and willfully ignorant patients led astray by … reactionaries and
conspiracy theorists claimed the virus wasn't really that dangerous, was a
myth, and falsely claimed quack drugs would cure them. Close to five thousand
health care workers died here taking care of the sick, and there was never a
national tribute to them, or a word of official thanks. Do not look at the
pictures here and think we are better than them, because we are not.
As Walsh and
Bashizi were leaving, Doctors Without Borders were sealing off the hospital and
establishing a proper isolation ward. It is likely the virus has already circulated
undetected for the past two months and penetrated deep into the surrounding communities.
The true scale of the outbreak is thus unknown and frightening to contemplate. To
protect overwhelmed health systems and prevent further transmission, the families
and communities in the region urgently need access to reliable health
information, early detection, and safe burials.
The inspiring
stories of courage, compassion, grit, and kindness in the people caring for
these vulnerable patients are what true heroism looks like. This is a story that
demands attention. The Times article is worthy of a Pulitzer. The
journalists covered it at great personal risk. Their words and photographs
brought me to a place with which I would not have the courage to go. My deepest
respect to Declan Walsh and Arlette Bashizi for bearing witness to suffering
with such honesty, dignity, and compassion. The world needs more reporting like
this. And a little more humanity.
*
* * *
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| Dr. Lokuda treating a patient (Photo: Arlette Bashizi, New York Times) |
According to experts
at the World Health Organization (WHO), a vaccine against this species
of Ebola will take six to nine months to develop. But Ebola is stopped on
the ground by trusted local health workers, protective equipment, proper specimen
transport, isolation units, and rapid response. Tragically, these are the very
capacities profoundly weakened by the Trump administration’s dismantling of the
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which affected billions of
dollars in grant money for thousands of programs and nonprofit organizations
around the world.
President Kennedy established USAID in
1961 to exercise American “soft power” in the form of financial resources,
technical expertise, and humanitarian assistance to under-developed countries. In 1964, the agency's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) was created to "save lives, alleviate
human suffering, and reduce the social and economic impact of disasters
worldwide." For the past six decades, human need, not politics, drove USAID’s
foreign disaster relief efforts, which received bipartisan support. Within hours of learning about the first signs
of the West Africa Ebola outbreak in 2014, USAID drove in 28 trucks of personal
protective equipment. President Obama deployed thousands of U.S. military
personnel to Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone to build treatment centers and
train local healthcare workers. And he secured from Congress $5.4 billion in
emergency funding, the largest single-nation contribution to an infectious
disease outbreak in history. These efforts played a tremendous part in stemming
the spread of the virus and eliminating the danger to the rest of the world.
But in early 2025, the world’s
richest man, Elon Musk, and his team of 20-something “whiz kids” thought it
would be a clever idea to eliminate USAID, the agency most equipped to help
with foreign disasters such as the Ebola outbreak. USAID staff in Washington who
had dedicated their careers to the OFDA received emails informing them they were fired and had
fifteen minutes to exit the building. Security personnel escorted them out. Also
terminated were thousands of USAID employees across the globe.
The dismantling of USAID has been
exacerbated by America’s withdrawal from the WHO, substantially reduced funding
for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and politically motivated cuts to
science and medical research facilities at the nation’s universities. Clueless
people who "move fast and break things" do not belong anywhere in
government. It is a recipe for a world catastrophe.
Collectively, these actions significantly
disrupted and slowed the world’s response to the Ebola outbreak. As reported in
a May 20 New York Times report, the WHO first learned of a cluster of
unexplained deaths on May 5, 2026. “The organization promptly alerted the
International Health Regulations, a legal framework for disclosing outbreaks.
But the United States withdrew from the W.H.O. earlier this year, cut
funding to the organization and rejected the framework, and American
officials no longer talk regularly with their international partners.” When the
U.S. government finally received confirmation of the Ebola outbreak on May 14, the
virus had already infected 250 people, caused 80 deaths, and begun to spread
across international borders.
The United States used to fund robust
disease surveillance networks that maintained emergency teams who could respond
rapidly to public health crises like the current Ebola outbreak. That all ended
with the shutdown of USAID. CDC funding cuts further resulted in the loss of hundreds
of experts, including in the DRC, who could have helped contain the epidemic. Moreover,
as The Times noted:
Numerous positions in the U.S.
government created to help detect and respond to global health threats remain
vacant. The coordinator for global health security, a position created by
Congress in 2023 to oversee preparedness to biological threats, is unfilled.
The White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy,
established by Congress in 2022, is also unstaffed.
The C.D.C.’s emerging disease center
has lost about 700 staff members and contractors, including the head of the
Division of High-Consequence Pathogens, which covers hantavirus and Ebola. The
C.D.C.’s Global Health Center has lost hundreds more employees, including many
who helped African health ministries manage disease outbreaks.
… the C.D.C.’s Congo office has seven
vacant positions for American staff, including the deputy director of the
global health protection program and director of the H.I.V. program. (Staff
from all programs would typically help in a large outbreak like this one.)
C.D.C.’s country office in Uganda
likewise has at least four vacant spots, including the leaders of the global
health protection and H.I.V. programs.
The Trump administration has instead
prioritized a close-the-border approach to the current crisis. Although it recently
committed slightly more than $200 million to the Ebola response in the DRC and
Uganda, most global health experts consider this inadequate, especially considering the structural dismantling of foundational healthcare systems and long-term funding cuts inflicted by Musk
and Trump over the past fifteen months. It reflects poorly on us as a nation. We
can and must do better.
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| The mining town of Mongbwalu (Photo: Arlette Bashizi, New York Times) |
Let me close
with a prayer for the medical workers and Red Cross volunteers who do God’s
work every day at significant risk to themselves, while the world sits mostly
in silence. These men and women are on the front lines combatting a frightening
disease, widespread ignorance, and misinformation. They deserve our heartfelt
thanks, praise, and support. Doctors Without Borders and other organizations
assisting with these valiant efforts deserve our generous financial support.
Human beings should never have to suffer like this. The world must respond.
