[Correspondence] Integrating responders’ mental health into the Ebola outbreak response

AI Summary

Mental health integration is critical among responders working in the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda amid armed conflict, displacement, and high infection risks. Frontline workers face extreme stressors including fear, exhaustion, and stigma, impacting outbreak control efforts.

Ebola outbreaks place extraordinary demands on the people tasked with containing them. The ongoing Bundibugyo virus disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, following cross-border transmission to Uganda, is occurring amid armed conflict, population displacement, humanitarian pressures, sustained transmission, and infections and deaths among health-care workers, underscoring that outbreak control depends on a diverse workforce operating under exceptional pressure.1 Responders face infection risk, repeated exposure to severe illness and death, fear of transmitting infection to their families, long working hours, exhaustion, isolation, stigma, and sometimes hostility.