AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is happening in a region of extremes. It's home to a deadly decades-old conflict. At the same time, the area is known for vast, beautiful national parks, famous for gorillas and snowcapped mountains near the equator. So what does that have to do with Ebola response efforts? NPR's Gabrielle Emanuel reports.
GABRIELLE EMANUEL, BYLINE: When Emmanuel de Merode looks around, it can be peaceful.
EMMANUEL DE MERODE: Most evenings, there are elephants crossing the river and pods of hippos.
EMANUEL: De Merode is the director of the DRC Virunga National Park, but his attention these days has turned from hippos and elephants to the Ebola outbreak that's spreading in the area. His park has been tapped to play a key role in containing the virus.
DE MERODE: The National Park serves as a natural firewall of sorts.
EMANUEL: A natural firewall because the park stretches almost 2 million acres, much of it along the DRC border with Uganda. His park rangers are busy building screening posts to check all travelers for symptoms of Ebola and track them. The first three posts will be completed by the end of this week.
DE MERODE: Screening means that if you do get a case spreading eastwards into Uganda, Rwanda or Kenya, you can trace everybody that they've traveled with, and so that enables you to contain an outbreak much faster.
EMANUEL: In the 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak that hit the area, several thousand travelers were screened each day in the park.
DE MERODE: If you build them where roads cross rivers, it's almost impossible to pass without being screened. So that's really important.
EMANUEL: Each post includes an exam room and isolation center and housing for a team of about 30. Eight of those are paramedics who are being recruited now, and the rest security personnel. This is a region long plagued by violence, but...
DE MERODE: The situation we're living through now is certainly the worst we've experienced in the past 30 years.
EMANUEL: De Merode says four park rangers have been killed by rebel groups in recent weeks and five others have been injured, three severely.
DE MERODE: Which is really unprecedented for us.
EMANUEL: He speculates a militia group may be leaving the Ebola-affected region. The violence is interfering with aid groups as well, but some have consciously not bulked up security. Anastassia Chkolenok is with Doctors Without Borders, which is operating at the epicenter. She's based in the nearby town of Goma, which is under militia control.
ANASTASSIA CHKOLENOK: What we have learned from previous Ebola outbreaks in DRC is that having some security or militarized support around healthcare facilities is totally detrimental and counterproductive.
EMANUEL: She says having guns doesn't build trust.
CHKOLENOK: Simply, the population might be scared to go to the healthcare facilities.
EMANUEL: But she admits this does leave Ebola treatment centers at risk of militia attacks.
CHKOLENOK: So it's a huge risk for all the responders.
EMANUEL: A Congolese doctor also in Goma says the city is bracing for Ebola patients, but it's isolated due to the security situation and now the outbreak.
R: (Speaking French).
EMANUEL: "The airport is closed and all the borders are closed," he says. "It's as if we are in an open-air prison. So how can supplies reach us?" This doctor asked only to be identified by his first initial, R, because he fears being targeted for speaking out. He says, foreign aid to the region has dropped, and hospital supplies are dwindling.
R: (Speaking French).
EMANUEL: "We don't have soap. We don't have disinfectant. There are no medical gowns. There are no protective face masks," he says. Often doctors try to buy soap with their own money, but amidst the conflict, banks have shut down, he says, and some doctors and nurses haven't been paid in months. But doctors have a moral obligation to care for Ebola patients, he says, so they will stay and sacrifice and do the best they can. Gabrielle Emanuel, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.