Mabalo Lokela
| Yambuku | |
|---|---|
| Village | |
 Yambuku
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| Coordinates: 2°49′23″N 22°13′28″E / 2.82306°N 22.22444°ECoordinates: 2°49′23″N 22°13′28″E / 2.82306°N 22.22444°E | |
| Country | Democratic Republic of the Congo |
| Province | Mongala |
Yambuku is a small village in Mongala Province in northern Democratic Republic of the Congo, best known as the center of the 1976 Ebola outbreak. It is 1,098 kilometres (682 mi) northeast of the capital city of Kinshasa. The village has no running water or electricity. There is a hospital, but it has no radio, phone, or ambulances, and communication is done by motorbike messenger.
The 1976 outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Zaire began in late August 1976. It was the second outbreak of Ebola, occurring shortly after the earlier 1976 outbreak in Sudan, and was the first known outbreak of Ebola. In total, 280 of the 318 cases of Ebola in Zaire resulted in death, a mortality rate of nearly 90 percent.
Mabalo Lokela, the headmaster of a local school in Yambuku, was the first case of the 1976 outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Zaire. Lokela had toured with a Yambuku mission in August 1976 near the Central African Republic border and along the Ebola River—the namesake of Ebola virus disease and the origin of the outbreak.
Lokela was initially diagnosed with malaria at the Yambuku Mission Hospital and given quinine. However, Lokela returned to the mission hospital on 1 September with a high fever. Rest was recommended, and he returned home to his village of Yalikonde, about one kilometer from the mission complex. By 5 September, Lokela was in a critical condition with profuse bleeding from all orifices, vomiting, acute diarrhea, chest pains, headache, fever and in an agitated and confused state. Lokela died shortly afterwards on 8 September. On 28 August, a second man presented symptoms, claiming he was from the nearby village of Yandongi. He left the hospital on 30 August, as no clear cause could be identified from his symptoms, and was not seen again. On the same day, Yombe Ngongo, a patient at the hospital receiving treatment for anemia, checked out of the hospital and returned to her village. She soon fell seriously ill, and was tended to by her younger sister Euza. Yombe Ngongo died on 7 September, and her sister Euza followed on 9 September.
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