Waiting for the all-clear: how medics and villagers rallied when Ebola returned to DRC

Bope Mpona Héritier, who lost his wife, daughter and mother to Ebola. The DRC has had 16 outbreaks of the disease since the virus’s discovery in 1976. Photograph: Josua Mulala/Guardian

His two-year-old daughter died first, then his mother, then his wife. But Bope Mpona Héritier still had no idea what illness had taken their lives. Then the 25-year-old also began to develop symptoms. When his blood was tested and sent to the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, the results confirmed he had the Ebola virus.

“I felt pain everywhere,” he says. “I had a migraine, a sharp pain in my eyes and throat, and I was vomiting. I couldn’t eat anything because I had no appetite, so I lost a lot of weight.”