Just a year ago, terrified inhabitants of African village of Mbomo desperately locked up their schools and churches and stayed inside their homes, not daring even to shake hands with each other for fear of contracting Ebola.
Victims of this fever bleed to death after their internal organs liquefy, and an epidemic last December claimed 35 lives in this region of the Congo, the smaller western neighbour of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
One year on, the word Ebola remains taboo. The very mention of it causes people to freeze into long and painful silence.
”If you speak about it, it might come back,” said a villager.
The disease is highly infectious and easily transmitted through contact with the blood and other body fluids of victims, even when they are dead.
Locals seemed to have learned the lessons taught by authorities in the capital, Brazzaville, or by the Red Cross and relief aid workers.
”We don’t eat monkey meat and we don’t collect dead meat any more,” villagers chorused.
One of the dangers has been eating dead animals found in the forest, such as gorillas, considered the likely origin of the virus jumping to humans.
But as the conversation continues, ancient superstitions resurface.
”Is Ebola a virus or sorcery?” asked Anne-Marie, a mother of five.
”A lot of investigators came here … but they said in the end it wasn’t Ebola,” said her friend Alphonse.
Despite awareness campaigns, old beliefs die hard in the face of this killer virus first detected in neighbouring Zaire (now the DRC) in 1976.
”People say it’s sorcery because those who have touched corpses are still alive,” said 25 year-old hairdresser Celine. ”If it had been a virus they would have died.”
The hue and cry is up for alleged sorcerers. Last year, four teachers were charged with ”mystical practices” and lynched by a mob in Akele, a village near this community close to the border with Congo’s northern neighbour Gabon.
Others yet again, such as Armand, claim that politicians have been practising human sacrifice ”to enjoy more power”.
In this district of more than 6 500 inhabitants, entire villages have been deserted. Here and there graves provide a tragic reminder of three waves of epidemic between the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2004, causing 300 deaths in the region.
”It was tough during the epidemic because people didn’t want to listen to advice, they didn’t want to be told they had Ebola, so they fled into the forest,” recalled Catherine Atsangandoko, head of the local medical centre.
All the homes of the sick have been disinfected, although some had to be burned down to reduce the contamination risk.
Sufferers from Ebola symptoms sometimes refused to be treated in hospital, fearing that the very medicines were themselves carriers of this virus with its 80% death rate.
Gilbert Ndomba is one of the few survivors of the last epidemic.
”I lost my children and my wife and I thought I was going to die too,” he said: ”God saved me.”
Ndomba (33) now lives off game. Like most others in Mbomo, he ate bush meat during the epidemic because tinned food was too expensive.
Ebola is one of a variety of highly contagious viral haemorrhagic fevers found in Africa. It is the most severe of the fevers, which can be transmitted from animals to human beings and through direct contact with body fluids and secretions.
The source and natural reservoir of the Ebola virus is still unknown, but it seems to be located in animals in the rainforests of Central Africa and the western Pacific, according to experts.
Yet there is still a minority of Pollyannas around Mbomo hunting and eating monkeys despite all the warnings — convinced that the Ebola scare won’t return. — Sapa-AFP