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.
Dr. Alex Bogole, a Congolese doctor in the hospital’s intensive care ward, was furious.
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.
This is the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the front line is completely overwhelmed.
The Congolese Health Ministry declared the outbreak on May 15, and it has already ballooned into the third largest on record. Two weeks later, the international response is being outpaced by the virus, and there is almost nothing to slow it down. Aid groups warnthat without urgent intervention, this could be the world’s deadliest Ebola outbreak ever.
Dr. Bogole was never trained for this and was angry at everyone — at the Congolese government for failing to detect the outbreak until perhaps six weeks after it began, and at the world, which has barely mobilized help here in Mongbwalu, a remote gold mining town of about 150,000 where the outbreak is believed to have started.
“They hold meetings and meetings,” he said, struggling to contain his disdain. “What is the purpose of these meetings? People are dying, people are getting infected, people are in danger. It’s very slow.”
I arrived here with Arlette Bashizi, a photographer for The New York Times, after taking a bumpy, three-hour journey from the regional capital, Bunia, on what has become the Ebola highway, a rutted dirt road that began spreading the disease long before anyone detected it.
Giant trucks, curling through lush hills, leave blinding clouds of dust. Edgy-looking Congolese soldiers guard checkpoints that are often little more than string. Gold miners and people fleeing rebel conflict stream in and out of Mongbwalu, providing an excellent vector for the spread of the virus.
Through April and into early May, doctors in Mongbwalu found themselves fighting a mysterious disease that was taking dozens of lives in the town. It turned out to be Bundibugyo, a virus that causes Ebola. There is no approved vaccine or treatment.
As of Thursday, at least 1,077 suspected cases and 246 suspected deaths had been recorded in this outbreak, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 400 of those cases are in Mongbwalu, a town in the heart of gold country and surrounded by rebel-held territory here in Ituri Province, in northeastern Congo.
