Ituri Province

On 9 July, front-line health workers in Ituri Province walked out or threatened to strike over unpaid hazard pay and delayed salaries. The disruption removed case-finding and isolation capacity from the province at the centre of the outbreak.

The payroll failure reached treatment centres themselves. Staff abandoned an isolation ward at Rwampara from 13 July, then workers at Elikya walked out on 25 July over unpaid wages. For Ituri, delayed pay was not an administrative dispute: it directly reduced the staff available to receive, isolate and treat patients.

On 27 July, Ituri had 264 empty Ebola isolation beds while Nord-Kivu's wards operated at 136% capacity for thirteen consecutive days. The mismatch left capacity in the province holding the larger caseload without placing it where patients could use it.

Responders also faced uneven access within Ituri. By 15 July, nine of twelve health posts in Djugu's Heritage health area had closed after patient numbers overwhelmed them. The closures showed that nominal beds elsewhere in the province could not replace care points lost in affected communities.