Feature Stories

When a young man in his town died of a haemorrhagic fever, Fabien Impanda Boliko had to act fast. The 56-year-old laboratory technician in Mbandaka tested and identified the first case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) 11th Ebola outbreak in the western Equateur province.

At the entrance to the Centre de médecine tradi-moderne du village, a health centre offering conventional and herbal treatments, in Beni town, a painted mural shows a man and a woman washing their hands. “Plants are life, handwashing saves lives” a caption reads.

Ali Ngarba says his biggest worry about COVID-19 is that there is no vaccine yet. He shares a compound with three other families in Goudji, a neighbourhood in the Chadian capital N’Djamena, and tries to keep safe: he has set up a handwashing bucket at the doorstep and ventures out only occasionally and when necessary.

When Dr Regis Ondze arrives at work each morning at the Albert Leyono Municipal Clinic, a low-slung beige building with ornate white balustrades near the banks of the Congo River, he finds himself on the frontlines of his country’s fight against COVID-19.

Gildo Sereia walks purposefully through the streets of Maianga, a populous neighbourhood on the outskirts of Angola’s capital Luanda, passing between rows of pastel-coloured cinderblock homes and dispensing succinct advice to residents on hand hygiene or how to wear masks correctly.

Much earlier in her life, Martha Kombe, now 24, watched someone close to her fight lung cancer and lose. Since then she has made a vow to help people avoid the agony that comes with such a painful disease.

Four months ago, Musa Adonicus Sambala declared himself a nonsmoker. But hours after deciding to kick the habit he bought himself a pack of 20 cigarettes and smoked 18 in six hours. He smoked compulsively. Inside remorse and self-pity burned him, he says.

Twenty-one-year-old university student Sidi Bolle grew up being warned against smoking. He has never taken a drag on a cigarette, he says. “Tobacco kills, voila,” comes a ready response as to why he is leading a student association of antismoking campaigners.

Benin has set up a COVID-19 testing centre at the main airport in the capital Cotonou to boost early detection and containment of the virus. Unlike many countries in the region, Benin’s airspace has remained open since the outbreak began. Land borders were shut, however.

On an overcast morning on the outskirts of the Kenyan city of Kisumu, which perches on the edge of Lake Victoria, a queue of commuters receives a spritz of hand sanitizer before boarding a minibus taxi, known locally as a matatu, to head into town.