Ebola Case in Rebel-Held Goma Complicates Congo Relief Response

(Bloomberg) -- An Ebola case detected in Goma, the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo city seized by Rwanda-backed rebels last year, is highlighting how conflict and decrepit infrastructure could hamper efforts to contain the virus.

A woman in Goma tested positive for Ebola, AFP reported citing Jean-Jacques Muyembe, the director of Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research, known by its French acronym INRB. The patient was “almost certainly infected by her husband, who died in Bunia,” the capital of the province at the epicenter of the current outbreak, Muyembe said.

Goma, a city of about 800,000 people, has long served as the humanitarian hub for eastern Congo, hosting aid agencies and warehouses stocked with medical supplies. But the closure of its airport by M23 rebels has crippled relief efforts across the region.

That challenge is becoming more acute. Congo’s INRB has testing capacity in both Kinshasa and Goma, but moving samples, medical teams and supplies across eastern Congo is difficult even in peacetime. Bunia is typically reached via humanitarian flights from Goma or Entebbe in Uganda, while commercial air links are sparse and often operate only a few times a week.

Supplies, personal protection equipment, “medicines, staff, will be needed in Goma if the outbreak spreads further there,” Liam Kelly, head of EU Civil Protection & Humanitarian Aid’s Uganda office said in a post on X.

Aid groups are increasingly concerned about how quickly the outbreak appears to be spreading. MSF, or Doctors Without Borders, said it was worried about the number of Ebola cases and deaths its teams were seeing “in such a short timeframe” in Ituri province, where the virus has spread across several health zones and beyond the border.

“In Ituri, many people already struggle to access healthcare and live with ongoing insecurity, making rapid action critical to prevent the outbreak from escalating further,” said Trish Newport, MSF’s emergency program manager.

Under normal conditions, Bunia is around an hour flight from Goma. Kinshasa is much further — roughly a three-hour trip if the flight is direct. That makes the closure of Goma airport a major obstacle for any rapid response.

The Health Ministry has dispatched planes to Bunia, but aid workers say transport and coordination will still be a challenge while M23 controls key infrastructure in the east.

The M23’s political wing did not immediately respond to an email and phone call Monday. 

M23 re-launched a rebellion in 2021, saying it’s protecting the rights of Tutsis in Congo and other speakers of the Rwandan language. Congo says the group and its backers are mainly interested in the region’s mineral riches, which include tin, tantalum and gold. 

“Significant uncertainties remain regarding the scale of transmission, and the outbreak may be larger than currently detected,” the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said in a statement on Monday. “Response efforts are further challenged by insecurity and humanitarian challenges in the affected areas.”

M23 has occupied eastern Congo’s two biggest cities, Goma and Bukavu, since last year. 

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