Leoni Kahumbu remembers the night her 15-year-old daughter, Pascaline, first showed signs of Ebola. She found her fainted on the bathroom floor, blood everywhere.
“She did not even have the strength to get up … I called an ambulance,” Kahumbu said. Experts came to their home the next day to disinfect the house. The 48-year-old and her three other children were isolated but have not come down with the often deadly virus.
Pascaline survived. She was among the first people given mAb114, one of five experimental treatments approved for use in Congo’s latest Ebola outbreak.
Now she and other survivors must now deal with the emotional toll of returning to nervous communities where they could be shunned. “Thank God I’m still alive,” said another survivor, Dr. Maurice Kakule Muchunga, one of several health workers who have been infected.
This is the first time an Ebola outbreak has occurred in Congo’s North Kivu and Ituri provinces, densely populated areas with an estimated 1 million people displaced by numerous armed groups fighting over rich natural resources. Ninety cases have been confirmed as Ebola, including 48 deaths.
Health officials face the challenge not only of combating a deadly virus in what is effectively a war zone but also of pushing back against possible stigma and fears of the unknown.
“Although I was negative for Ebola, all of my friends are scared of me,” said Leoni, who tested negative for Ebola and came home to find all of the family’s belongings destroyed to stop the virus from spreading. “I spend all day inside watching TV, and if I leave…
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