Save Lives.
Stop Ebola.
A Samaritan's Purse Disaster Response Team is on the ground in Democratic Republic of the Congo. We will set up an Ebola Treatment Center in hard-hit Ituri Province.
- We've reached more than 14,000 Congolese with infection prevention programming and installed scores of handwashing stations. Containment and education measures continue in nearly two dozen health zones.
- Construction has started on our Ebola Treatment Centers in Ituri Province as we equip our longtime partner hospital in Nyankunde and train medical workers in use of personal protective equipment (PPE).
- Our May 24 767 flight transported almost 80,000 pounds of medical supplies and protective equipment to the region, all carried on 12 flights into DRC aboard Samaritan's Purse planes, chartered C-130s, and other aircraft.
Samaritan’s Purse teams are on the ground in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo coordinating with the Ministry of Health across nearly two dozen health zones as reported cases of Ebola have surpassed 1,000.
We are preparing to establish an Ebola Treatment Center just outside of Bunia, the capital of Ituri Province, and our teams are working in communities to contain the spread of the disease.
Through an education campaign, we are actively reaching thousands of people with information on disease risks and prevention. Our water, sanitation, and hygiene teams are establishing handwashing stations and instructing in proper sanitation and hygiene to prevent disease transmission.
We will assist local mission hospitals and communities with establishing protocols for treatment of infected patients, prevention of person-to-person transmission, and controlling the spread. The Emergency Field Hospital, to be operated by Samaritan's Purse, is specifically adapted to treat Ebola patients.
Our longstanding country office is based in Bunia, the capital of hard-hit Ituri Province. Staff members there are working in Jesus' Name to provide education in disease prevention; water, sanitation, and hygiene projects; and other programming to stop spread of the virus.
Supplies from our 767 airlift on May 24 are being transported from Uganda into the area. These include the field hospital and desperately needed personal protective equipment for local healthcare workers who've been treating patients since the deadly outbreak.
Disaster response specialists already serving in hard-hit Ituri Province include an outbreak specialist; infection, prevention and control specialist; and medical personnel. More team members will soon join them.
“Samaritan's Purse has been on the frontlines of fighting Ebola for more than a decade, and we aren't going to stop now. We are going to do everything we can to help save lives,” said Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan's Purse. “We want people to know that God loves them, and they are not alone.”
Graham added: "As this deadly Ebola virus spreads so does people’s fear and uncertainty. They are in desperate need of emergency medical relief and supplies to help prevent the spread of this outbreak. That’s why Samaritan’s Purse is airlifting supplies to the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo."
The Samaritan's Purse 767 cargo plane departed North Carolina headed for Africa on May 24, airlifting more than 39 tons of essential medical supplies to help combat the spread of this deadly virus. Local hospitals are desperate to receive the protective equipment for their healthcare providers.
Our organization has a long history of responding to infectious diseases, including Ebola, cholera, diphtheria, and COVID-19.
During the height of the Ebola outbreak in Liberia in 2014, Samaritan's Purse opened an Ebola Treatment Center—giving hands-on patient care—and combatted infection rates by providing hygiene training and prevention education across affected communities. Through a massive public education campaign, which included thousands of church leaders, Samaritan's Purse provided potentially life-saving information to more than 1.6 million people.
Our organization has a long-history of responding to infectious diseases, including Ebola, cholera, diphtheria, and COVID-19.
Just a few years later, in January 2019, Samaritan's Purse established an Ebola Treatment Center in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, caring for more than 600 patients and continuing to educate communities on best practices to help stop the spread of the disease.
Please be in prayer for our country staff and DART as we respond to this 2026 outbreak. Pray for all the people affected in central and eastern Africa and for an end to the spread of this virus.
Preparing for Ebola Patients in Congo
Amid personal loss during the devastating outbreak, medical workers are training with Samaritan’s Purse staff to save lives and stop the spread of disease.
A nurse named Ngabu is in a training room in Ituri Province, learning how to put on a hazmat suit. His younger brother is lying in an isolation ward somewhere he cannot visit.
Ngabu hasn’t seen him since his brother was transported to the facility. He doesn’t know when he will.
He saw two of his pastors die from the disease. Six of his neighbors have died. Colleagues have died. And even as he trains with our team and prepares to serve in our Ebola Treatment Center in the coming days, he’s grieving the losses in his community and region.
“Here in this room, we’re learning how to use chlorine and how to protect ourselves by correctly using the technique of putting on personal protective equipment (PPE) and taking off PPE so as not to be contaminated,” he said. “We want to cut the chain of transmission. It’s love. Love of neighbor.”
“It’s a great scourge for Ituri,” he said. “If no one comes to the aid of the population, we have no hope of living. It’s hard for me to watch someone die when I can do something, and I wanted to work with Samaritan’s Purse because I do have a bit of experience from the Ebola outbreak of 2019. I know that Samaritan’s Purse has the competence in the matter of this virus.”
For the medical workers training here, that labor is driven by love for friends, family, and neighbors. Many of them have already experienced heartbreaking loss.
Training Teams to Stop the Spread
Since late May, Samaritan’s Purse has been rushing supplies into the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to the Bunia community of Ituri Province. We have a large, well-established field office in the area and a longtime partner hospital already treating Ebola patients for several days before we arrived.
This most recent Ebola outbreak in the country is affecting nearly two dozen health zones in Ituri Province and beyond.
Samaritan’s Purse has been responding since May 24, when our 767 cargo plane departed North Carolina carrying many tons of medical supplies and protective equipment. We have a long history of fighting this disease — including operating an Ebola Treatment Center in Liberia in 2014 and caring for more than 600 patients in the DRC during the 2018-19 outbreak.
Preparing Treatment Centers
Soon we will open two Ebola Treatment Centers, one in Bunia and one at Nyankunde Hospital, because hospital and clinics are at near-full capacity with little means of separating Ebola patients from the general patient population.
“In Nyankunde, we’re setting up an Ebola isolation center right across the street from an existing hospital,” said Abigail McElheney, a Samaritan’s Purse program manager on the response. “This will allow that hospital to start maintaining proper isolation and prevent community spread between people with other medical conditions coming in.”
The center in Bunia is being constructed in an open field and will provide proper isolation with individual patient rooms. The center at Nyankunde is being built in an existing structure just across the street from the hospital.
Kim Wiebe, a critical care nurse from Canada and a member of our Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART), said workers are also being trained in using the isolation areas. Many of the protocols are familiar to medical staff, a number of whom served in the previous Ebola response in DRC.
“This is a refresher training for many of the staff,” she said. “This ensures we’re all able to have safe practices and ensure that we can deliver really safe care to our patients.”
Please pray as we prepare to receive patients in the coming days. Pray for protection for our staff and other workers, for healing among patients, and that the disease spread would be halted.
