Radio Okapi

Radio Okapi has broken several of the Bundibugyo Ebola epidemic's local stories. On 15 July 2026 it reported that nine of the twelve health posts in the Heritage health area of Djugu territory, Ituri, had shut after patient numbers overwhelmed them. A local sector chief told it the closures had cost more than a hundred lives; DR Congo's health authorities have not confirmed that toll.

In October its reporting from Gemena followed the virus to the north-west. Provincial doctors led by Dr Grace Ngilase were on strike over unpaid registration when Sud-Ubangi's second case was confirmed. Its account framed the province's problem as one of staffing, where officials stressed border position and river traffic.

Radio Okapi reported the July 2026 walkout at the Rwampara Ebola Treatment Centre in Bunia, Ituri's capital. From 13 July staff abandoned an isolation ward and burned tyres at the entrance, striking over unpaid salaries and bonuses.

Five days later officials pledged to validate who was owed pay and to digitise the payment system, an admission that the existing process could not confirm who was unpaid. The same theme returned in Sud-Ubangi in October, where the network found doctors on strike over pay. For a station broadcasting to the communities the response depends on, unpaid clinicians have become one of the outbreak's recurring stories.