A medical charity has warned that hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for the Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of Congo are failing to reach the people they were meant to help. In a report, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said the outbreak remained “out of control” while front-line workers were going unpaid, lacked proper training and were struggling with shortages of essential supplies.
The charity said that in some cases ambulances had run out of fuel. More than 5,400 people have died and 11,000 have been infected in DR Congo since the outbreak was declared in May, according to the figures cited in the report. That makes it the second-deadliest Ebola outbreak ever recorded.
Unaccounted Ebola funds and calls for oversight
MSF urged the Congolese government and UN agencies to “strengthen oversight and accountability” so that money already disbursed is used effectively. The charity said this means making sure response staff are properly trained, paid, equipped and supported, and directing resources towards the areas of greatest need.
Also read: DR Congo Ebola Cases Surpass 11,000 as Deaths Reach 5,387
The warning follows concerns raised last month by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). It said $700m (£527m) out of $962m disbursed to organisations running the Ebola response could not be accounted for. Africa CDC chief Jean Kaseya said it was too early to describe the money as embezzled, and instead called it a major failure of transparency and financial reporting.
The Congolese health minister echoed those concerns. Aid agencies are required to provide details of their work so the ministry can carry out oversight, he said, but only 22% had done so. Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba wrote on X: “Our requirement is clear: transparency must be total. The response relies on a single plan, a single budget, and a single coordination.”
Comment has been requested from the Congolese government on the MSF report.
Frontline shortages and weak surveillance on the ground
In its report, MSF said that despite large sums provided for the response, many frontline responders were “left trying to contain the outbreak with empty hands and empty pockets”. The charity also described Ebola monitoring “surveillance teams that exist on paper but are nowhere to be seen on the ground”.
MSF president Javid Abdelmoneim said the charity’s teams were often shocked by the dysfunction they saw. “Six months into the response, this situation is simply unacceptable,” he said.
One of the key ways to stop Ebola spreading is contact tracing, which involves finding everyone who has been in contact with an infected person and isolating them. MSF said that, despite the resources officially allocated to this work, surveillance remained deeply problematic. It added that two-thirds of deaths were occurring in communities rather than in treatment centres.
British epidemiologist Neil Ferguson was quoted as saying that more than half of the cases were going undetected, meaning the outbreak was likely to last another year. MSF also said health facilities lacked essential items such as water, chlorine and triage systems. The charity warned that this “has turned some facilities into new centres of transmission, rather than places of care that contribute to containing the disease”.
Bundibugyo outbreak spreads beyond DR Congo borders
MSF raised concerns about what it called an “excessive concentration” of efforts in certain areas, at the expense of places where needs were more urgent. It said the response was “too slow” in North Kivu province, while Haut-Uélé remained “dramatically overlooked”. In both provinces, teams were “inadequately resourced to respond effectively”.
The epicentre of the outbreak is in eastern DR Congo, a region that has been affected by conflict for many decades, with some affected areas under rebel control. Very few good roads serve the area, making travel within it very difficult. On Thursday, the UN and the government warned that the worst-affected areas were also facing a severe food crisis, with almost 10 million people in the region in dire need.
The latest outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo species of the virus, has spread beyond DR Congo’s borders, with cases reported in Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria. On Wednesday, the last person infected with Ebola in Kenya was discharged, which was described as a major milestone in efforts to contain the disease in the East African nation.
The Bundibugyo species is relatively rare and has no approved vaccine or treatment, although trials are under way.
