Caught Between Killers: Ebola on One Side, Islamic State on the Other

So many people are dying of Ebola that their bodies have been stacked, one atop the other, on makeshift racks in a shed by the hospital gate. The town’s main cemetery is full, so fresh graves are being squeezed in between palm trees by the side of the road. Medicine, IVs and basic protections have been so scarce that three-quarters of Ebola patients in this besieged Congolese town have died. Supported by Caught Between Killers: Ebola on One Side, Islamic State on the Other Six months on, Ebola continues to hack a deadly trail across eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. When the outbreak was first detected in May, it resembled a single, giant blaze, with infections concentrated in a handful of towns in one province. It has since morphed into a far bigger, more elusive foe, creeping into eight provinces and splintering into numerous hot spots as its moves through one of the world’s great rainforests. Instead of one big fire, there are many now, scattered across a vast area about the size of Britain. Health workers have corralled the virus where it was first detected, but infections are soaring elsewhere. Biakato, a small town deep in the rainforest, suddenly accounted for as many as one-quarter of new cases nationally. Yet its beleaguered residents were left almost entirely on their own, with dangerously little to defend themselves against the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history. “We see the same mistakes as before,” said Dr. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, who helped discover Ebola in 1976 and now heads Congo’s National Institute for Biomedical Research. “It’s as if we were starting from zero. It’s very disappointing.” And if that were not enough, the campaign to contain the epidemic has run into a terrifying new threat: the Islamic State. DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO Mongbwalu Lake Albert Mambasa ITURI Biakato UGANDA Beni AFRICA NORTH KIVU Lake Edward Detail area Kinshasa 100 mileS Related Content Advertisement