Ebola Leaders Urge Community Response
- Jean Kaseya and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus visited Bunia and met community representatives who demanded direct involvement in the Ebola response.
- Community members told the officials that trust in the response is breaking down, which they say poses a direct risk to containment efforts.
- Despite calling it the deadliest Ebola outbreak on record, the two officials argue it can still be stopped if communities are empowered to lead the response.
Two of the world's most senior global health officials have called for communities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to be placed at the centre of efforts to contain the country's deadliest Ebola outbreak, now entering its 101st day with no confirmed end in sight.
A message from Bunia
Jean Kaseya and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus write that on visits to Bunia, in the DRC's north-east, they met dozens of community representatives — among them survivors, women, young people, local organisations, health workers and leaders from areas directly affected by the outbreak. The message those representatives delivered was unambiguous: involve us.
"We know our communities. We know where families seek care, how information moves and why trust is breaking down," the community members told them, according to the two officials. "Give us the means to help drive the response."
Kaseya and Ghebreyesus say that message was correct. Their central argument is that Ebola, as a disease that spreads through communities, cannot be controlled without the active participation of those same communities — and that the breakdown of trust in affected areas represents one of the most significant obstacles the response currently faces.
An outbreak described as stoppable
Despite the gravity of the situation — the officials describe this as the deadliest Ebola outbreak on record — their joint assessment is that it remains possible to halt transmission. The pair do not claim the outbreak is under control; rather, they argue that the conditions for a successful response exist if the structural shift toward community-led action is made.
The outbreak's trajectory and the precise measures they propose are not fully set out in the material available, but the framing is notable: two of the highest-ranking figures in international public health are publicly acknowledging that trust between authorities and local populations is fracturing, and that this fracture is a threat to containment. For more on the scale of the crisis, see the outbreak's toll after 100 days and reports of the virus reaching a sixth Congolese province.
The most consequential implication of their intervention is structural: if the officials' analysis is accepted, the effectiveness of the entire international response depends not on resources or logistics alone, but on whether affected communities choose to engage with it — a condition that, by their own account, is currently in doubt.
