The struggle to get Ebola vaccine to rebel-held areas of Congo

WHEN A YOUNG woman living near Beni came down with a fever, a nurse told her to go to the clinic for a test. But by the time the Ebola virus was detected in her blood, she was in a car bumping her way towards Kalungata, an area controlled by the Mai-Mai, a plundering, raping militia. She probably fled because of a widespread belief that people go to clinics to die. Beni is the epicentre of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s latest Ebola outbreak.

A week later a cluster of Ebola cases cropped up in a village close to where the woman was hiding. It took three days of talks with a Mai-Mai chief before vaccination teams were allowed in. This was too late. The vaccine does not work on those who already have symptoms, which can appear within 48 hours of infection. The disease, which causes copious bleeding, spread to 45 people in the area, killing 23.

The overall toll from this outbreak stands at 241, making it Congo’s third-deadliest and the world’s fourth-largest. Congo, with its long experience...