A caregiver wearing a protective gown and gloves bottle-fed a baby, one of hundreds of children orphaned by the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola outbreak.
Five months into the epidemic, the virus continues to spread, and the nursery in the country’s remote east is among 12 facilities caring for children whose parents have died from the highly contagious disease.
“Many children have lost both their father and mother because of Ebola,” Marie Bakikula, a caregiver at a UNICEF-supported nursery in Mongbwalu, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The mining town in Ituri province, near the Ugandan border, is considered the epicenter of the outbreak.
Children account for about one-third of deaths and more than one-quarter of infections in the current crisis, which has recorded more than 2,000 cases, according to UNICEF.
A short distance from the nursery, workers in white protective suits loaded a child-sized coffin into the back of a pickup truck.
Other children survive but lose their families. Those arriving at the emergency nurseries have witnessed their parents die and seen burial teams in protective suits remove their bodies.
Others were separated from their families after their infected parents were transferred to Ebola treatment centers.
“They all believe that by coming here they will never see their parents again,” said Monique Ndjangosi, a psychologist at the Mongbwalu nursery.
Nearby, a young girl and three boys played among stuffed toys that had recently been disinfected with chlorine. Their mothers had tested positive for the virus.
The children will remain under observation for 21 days, the disease’s incubation period, in case they develop symptoms.
“One of them showed symptoms seven days after arriving and was admitted to the Ebola treatment center,” said Bakikula, who volunteered to work at the facility after surviving Ebola herself.
The only contact many children maintain with their infected parents is through photographs and videos taken by health care workers.
“We cannot take them inside the treatment center to visit their parents. It’s too risky,” Ndjangosi said.
In some cases, child protection teams succeed in locating relatives, including distant family members, who can care for orphaned children. In others, finding relatives proves impossible.
“We still have children we have not been able to identify because they are too young and their parents arrived in a coma,” said Celine Lusinde, head of provincial child protection services.
Her office has registered 8,200 newly orphaned children since the outbreak began.
Marie-Therese Tsesi, a 63-year-old nurse, has taken in five children orphaned by Ebola at her modest mud-brick home near Mongbwalu hospital.
“Their father was the only parent they had left. He died of Ebola,” she said.
“They were sleeping outside and showing signs of malnutrition.”
The current Ebola epidemic, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s 17th, quickly became the deadliest on record in the central African country and remains uncontrolled despite months of efforts. Cases have also been detected in Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria.
The disease spreads through contact with bodily fluids and causes severe hemorrhagic fever. It has infected 9,704 people and killed 4,687 in the DRC, according to the latest health authority figures, giving it a fatality rate of nearly 50%.
A clinical trial is underway, but there is currently no approved vaccine or specific treatment for the Bundibugyo strain responsible for the outbreak.
Health authorities continue to face resource shortages, while insecurity caused by armed groups in Ituri province, the area hardest hit by the epidemic, restricts access to some communities.
Many deaths occurring outside health facilities are believed to go unreported.
