WHEN EBOLA WAS at its peak in Sierra Leone in 2014, I led the Trócaire response for a number of weeks in the midst of the pandemic.

It was a scary and uncertain time, but it was also humbling to work with the amazing local team and with dedicated local organisations in responding to a virus with no cure and with such a high death rate.

Ebola was and still is a terrifying word, with the killing of entire families and devastating already fragile health systems. I still remember only too well the families I met who lost loved ones, children, parents to the disease.

Twelve years later, and post the largest global pandemic of this century so far, we know, here in Ireland and throughout the West, much more intimately what fear, uncertainty and isolation feel like when a deadly virus begins to spread.

That is why the latest Ebola outbreak in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) should concern all of us.

Worrying rise in Ebola

On 17 May, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern just two days after the virus was confirmed in the DR Congo.

The speed of that declaration tells its own story. Health experts know how quickly Ebola can spread, and how dangerous delays can be.

Vanny Birungi, a volunteer, on a house-to-house sensitisation campaign amid the Ebola outbreak in Bunia, Congo, Monday, May 25, 2026. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

This latest outbreak is centred in Ituri Province. Trócaire has worked there since the early 1990s alongside local partners and........

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