KINSHASA, Saturday, June 13, 2026. For two hours, 55 Congolese Scholars from The Geneva Learning Foundation met by video to share what they learned fighting Bundibugyo virus disease. The disease had been spreading in the east since the month before. No one ordered this meeting. The Scholars called it themselves.
They shared at least ten lessons. These lessons help both the current response and future ones.
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1. People must understand the risk before they will act
Risk communication and community engagement does not just inform. It creates the condition that makes information useful. Dr. Dominique Aleko said it clearly: “If someone does not understand the risk, they will not engage. Everything you say will miss them.” Any message that skips this step talks to no one.
2. Trust is built before the outbreak, or not at all
Several voices said this from different positions. Dominique Aleko: “If the community does not trust the team, the team will not get help stopping the outbreak.” Évariste Kayembe, after his mission to Wampara: “You cannot act without involving the local community.” The lesson is clear. Response teams that drop in community listening only after the official declaration pay in confusion what they saved in preparation.
3. Rumors die through action, not argument
Dominique Aleko gave communication teams a direct rule. “Do not treat the rumor as fact. When you repeat what people said to correct it, you spread the rumor. Respond with action. Put good information into circulation.” Repeating a rumor to deny it spreads it. The answer is good information spread through your own action, not point-by-point denial.
4. Funeral rites need equipment, not bans
Ambassador Marlène Kapinga Mulumba, head of service at the national directorate for continuing education, proposed the most practical step of the afternoon. “We know our African cultures and traditions. When someone dies, you must be there for your family member. But with Bundibugyo virus disease, as with Ebola, you cannot be there. People try to take the body. That spreads the disease. If families must be present, give them protective equipment.” Protective equipment for grieving families costs less than new cases from mistrust.
5. In the east, security is its own response pillar
Joseph Baroani Kikuni Jobacky stated a fact that manuals file somewhere else. “When this disease shows up in a conflict zone in the east, we add security pillars. You cannot do your supervision without security clearance.” The six standard pillars are coordination, surveillance, care, risk communication, safe burial, and infection control. In Ituri, you need a seventh pillar: operational security. This pillar decides who moves, when, and with what escort. Any plan that skips it is already behind.
6. Local labs need the right supplies, not just equipment
Dr. Évariste Kayembe shared a point that official numbers miss. “Our organization helped fix up the main lab in Bunia with World Bank money. But the tool we had for diagnosis was PCR. This virus strain could not be found with PCR. We needed cartridges for the RADI-1 device. That is how the first cases were caught at INRB in Kinshasa.” A new lab in the right place with PCR equipment still could not see the strain moving just kilometers away. Lab capacity means having the right cartridge on the right day, not just cutting a ribbon on a building.
7. You must work with traditional leaders
Évariste Kayembe’s story about his work in the Hema chiefdom stopped the room. “We went to meet the traditional authority, the chief of the Hema chiefdom. That area includes the Wampara health zone and the Nyakundes, who were hit hard by this outbreak. You cannot do this work without the local community.” Before you trace contacts, before you raise awareness, before you give care, the first visit is protocol. You go to the traditional leader who decides whether the response can work in their area.
8. Social listening does not wait for paperwork
Ambassador Pasiko Eza works at a health zone 14 kilometers from the Mungwalu outbreak. He explained how Scholars built a survey in days without a budget. “With friends in Kinshasa, we set up a Kobo Collect form to see how people felt about this outbreak. We went to the field and gathered data.” The result, shared right there in the session, showed what no official report had said: “Most of the local population does not believe Ebola virus disease is real.” The time from observation to sharing was days, not months.
9. Provinces without cases prepare by stopping rumors, not by waiting for patients
Toyi Mirefu spoke from Bukavu. He started with something health officials often miss. “We do not have many cases here yet. People are not awake like they are in Ituri province. In Ituri, in Bunia, in North Kivu, people already know what is happening and they are learning.” A province next door with no cases is not safe. It is a province where it is harder to get people ready. Rumor gets there before real information. You have to start prevention earlier. It costs more.
10. You cannot pick between two emergencies. You must handle both.
The Congo Scholars team did not stop their malaria program to work on Ebola. They added peer training on Bundibugyo virus disease. Charlotte Mbuh announced this in the session. She is the director of programs at The Geneva Learning Foundation. “We kept our malaria program going. We also thought about how we could help with this outbreak in the DRC. We are offering training on this disease, Ebola virus disease.” When health systems are under stress, they try to rank emergencies. They pick one. After ten years of peer learning, this network does both at the same time.
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One lesson that holds them all
These ten lessons matter because they came from practitioners who know each other. They trained together. They did not need a budget or permission to meet on a Saturday afternoon. Future responses in the DRC and everywhere else need to understand this. No guide can replace a relationship built before an epidemic starts. No team sent in during a crisis can rebuild what this network learned when there was time.
In Bukavu, in Mbujimayi, in Tshikapa, in Durba, in Kinshasa, in Kananga, in Ébolowa, the conversation continues.
Saturday afternoon. Across distance. Drawing on everything that brings us together.
We are together.