Rwampara Ebola Treatment Centre
Ebola treatment centre in Bunia, DRC, where staff struck over unpaid hazard pay.
Staff at Rwampara, the principal Ebola treatment centre for Bunia, abandoned an isolation ward and burned tyres at the gate from 13 July over unpaid hazard pay and bonuses, before returning to work conditionally after officials pledged a payroll fix.
Last refreshed: 31 July 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Ebola staff walked off the ward over unpaid bonuses; will a payroll fix hold?
Timeline for Rwampara Ebola Treatment Centre
Lost staff who walked out over unpaid wages
Pandemics and Biosecurity: A second Ebola centre walks out on payEbola staff abandon a Bunia ward
Pandemics and BiosecurityBackground
Rwampara is the principal Ebola treatment centre serving Bunia, Ituri Province's capital, taking the patients the province's rural health posts cannot handle.
In July 2026 the centre became the first in Ituri's Bundibugyo response to lose staff to a hazard-pay strike, when workers abandoned an isolation ward and burned tyres at the gate over unpaid salaries and bonuses promised during an earlier ministerial visit.
The episode exposed a payroll system that Ituri response officials themselves admitted could not reliably confirm who was owed money, a structural weakness that recurred at a second Ituri facility, the Elikya treatment centre, within a fortnight.
Staff abandon the isolation ward
Staff hardened their strike from 13 July, abandoning an isolation ward and burning tyres at the gate over salaries and bonuses promised during an earlier ministerial visit; five days later, Ituri response officials pledged at a Bunia press conference to validate personnel lists and digitise the payment system, and staff returned conditionally after a day.
Rwampara's walkout set the pattern for the wider response: a second Ituri facility, the Elikya treatment centre, followed with its own unpaid-wages strike on 25 July.