Médecins Sans Frontières - The Fight against Ebola

Unique Identifier Code / URN MSF337665

Date taken / Date Recorded 16/10/2020 12:00 AM

Country Democratic Republic of Congo

Commissioning section MSF-HONG KONG

Copyright MSF

Usage Rights (MSF) Advertising Campaign, External Media, MSF Publications, Social Media

Formal Consent Copy available no

Editor's rating ★★★ (F)

Video format h264 (Main) (avc1 / 0x31637661)

Duration 3m50s

Maximum Size 1920px × 1080px 257.87 MB

Additional Information / Shotlist VO script in English:

In May 2018, Ebola is back in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I joined MSF as a water and sanitation specialist to respond to the Ebola outbreak.

When we were setting up the Ebola treatment centre in Iboko, our team was told that one confirmed Ebola patient died in a village called Bobale.

Her remains were very infectious, so we wanted to make sure that her body was properly handled to avoid the further spread of the disease.

With an outbreak like this, it was a race against time. Three of us travelled to Bobale.

I needed to disinfect the woman’s house, and place her remains in a safe body bag which would go into a sealed coffin. But it was dark… there wasn’t enough light to enter the house safely without the risk of tearing my protection suit on sharp objects.

So, we decided to postpone until the next morning.

We started working as the dawn broke.

I sprayed the house and disinfected the woman’s body in a respectful way under her husband's eyes. It took me an hour to finish and I had been sweating in the suit.

Then I collected all the clothes, sheets and other potentially contaminated materials into a bag that I sprayed with chlorine. We put this bag into another bag, sprayed again, and put into a third bag. It was then taken back to our treatment centre in Iboko and burnt.

My task here was done, but the fight against Ebola is not over yet.

The Ebola epidemic in Equateur province declared on 8 May 2018 came to an end on 24 July, 38 confirmed cases and 17 deaths were recorded. It was the 9th outbreak in the country’s history.

Just days after, the 10th Ebola outbreak of the country was declared in North Kivu province on 1 August 2018. This outbreak in the northeast of DRC has recorded a total of 3,317 patients and 2,287 deaths. It lasted for 11 months and ended in 25 June 2020. It is known as the second-biggest Ebola epidemic ever recorded, behind the West Africa outbreak of 2014-2016.

Meanwhile, the disease is back to the Equateur province only less than two years since the 9th outbreak ended. DRC declared its 11th Ebola outbreak last June 2020.. As of 25 June 2020, there were 25 confirmed cases and 13 deaths.

MSF has been working with the country’s Ministry of Health in responding to all these three Ebola outbreaks.

The Fight against Ebola_SPA

The Fight against Ebola_SPA