Ebola: Outbreak cases are “tip of iceberg,” says Africa CDC official at centre of epidemic

“Better to die from Ebola than the attacker who would come and cut my head off.” That was what Yap Boum II’s driver told him as he arrived this week in Beni, North Kivu, a province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).Boum is head of the emergency preparedness and response division for the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). He is also regional incident manager for the Ebola response. In early June he visited an Ebola treatment centre in Beni. A week before his trip more than 30 people were killed in attacks on nearby villages. Multiple victims were beheaded.1“When you listen to that, you change your perspective on what your role is in the response,” Boum told The BMJ. “The most important thing we have is the trust of the community—which is not a given.”Since the current Ebola outbreak emerged in mid-May2 there have…