DRC 2018 Ebola outbreaks

“Ebola is about human beings and trust”

Seraphine is a MSF nurse who’s preparing herself together with her colleagues to go into the high risk zone of the Ebola Treatment centre (ETC). She’s from the region (North-Kivu) and has been working several years for MSF. She’s currently detached by the “Pool D’urgence de Congo” to help out in the Ebola project of Mangina. She got her first ebola experience earlier this year during the epidemic in the equator province. “During the first intervention I was really afraid to get sick (ebola),” she says. “At night I was all the time thinking about what I touched that day in the High risk zone of the ETC, worried that I might get Ebola. Now, I’m way more relaxed and I have more confidence!” As an adolescent Seraphine wasn’t too keen to become a nurse, but she did because her aunt asked her. “My aunt always complained that the people working in hospitals never smiled. That’s why she didn’t feel comfortable there. She literally asked me to become a nurse so she would encounter at least one person with a smile in the hospital. So that’s what I do now, I treat people in the best way I can, but more importantly, I also give them a big smile!”

Interview 12 Oct 2018

Dr Hilde De Clerck is one of MSF’s most experienced Ebola doctors and has just returned from North Kivu, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where the latest outbreak has proven hard to control.

We provide medical assistance to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from healthcare. Our teams are made up of tens of thousands of health professionals, logistic and administrative staff - most of them hired locally. Our actions are guided by medical ethics and the principles of impartiality, independence and neutrality.