When a young man in his town died of a haemorrhagic fever, Fabien Impanda Boliko had to act fast. The 56-year-old laboratory technician in Mbandaka tested and identified the first case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) 11th Ebola outbreak in the western Equateur province.
At the entrance to the Centre de médecine tradi-moderne du village, a health centre offering conventional and herbal treatments, in Beni town, a painted mural shows a man and a woman washing their hands. “Plants are life, handwashing saves lives” a caption reads.
