Prayer Alert: Congo Missionaries Sound the Alarm about Ebola Outbreak

Melissa Nordell : Aug 7, 2026
Strategic Prayer Command Ministry

"Pray for miracles." -Don Foster, Missionary

[Strategic Prayer Command Ministry] The world does not seem to be alerted to the devastation and fast outbreak of the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This outbreak is spreading out of control as 1405 are now dead and that number is increasing by 4.4% per day. It has spread to 48 health zones in 5 provinces there. (Image: Don and Jenya Foster, missionaries in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with orphaned children in the mission /Photos courtesy Don Foster)

The DRC is only in the beginning of the worst Ebola outbreak in history, and they expect approximately 20 to 30 thousand to be dead by January. In a report from missionary Don Foster in Beni in the DRC, he says: "No one on earth, much less in the Church, has even mentioned these numbers. Please pray."

These projections for the death totals are figured without massive additional funding which was recently cited to be a $1.4 billion need. This help is highly unlikely. With the average daily growth rate of deaths at 4.4%, that trajectory predicts roughly 19,000 dead by late September; and 76,000 by the end of the year.

The number of people diagnosed positive for Ebola at present could be 2 to 4 times higher than official figures because people are afraid to report their symptoms. That is because when people die from Ebola, the government will not let them perform their traditional funeral practices. They estimate that 6,000 to 12,000 people may already be infected and not yet tested or reported. At a 46-52% fatality rate, that hidden pool alone will produce thousands more deaths.

No Ebola virus has killed so many so fast. Ebola outbreaks usually "die out" or slow down due to "depletion of susceptibles," or intervention comes. Unfortunately, no real effective intervention, vaccine, or cure is coming. The first Bundibugyo-specific vaccine candidate is months to more than a year from being of any assistance; so, nothing will change the rate of deaths in the next two to three months.

Community resistance to any medical help, attacks on treatment centers, health-worker strikes for lack of pay and health workers deaths, riots regarding Ebola and the government's response, lack of education on Ebola, and four separate wars in the Congo all drive the trajectory towards higher numbers in the DRC.

In Beni, where Don has an orphanage and prison ministry, he reports that he hears the Congolese make statements like: "There is no such thing as Ebola," or "You only get Ebola when they inject you at the hospital," or "If you go to an Ebola centre, you will die."

"People in Beni have stoned a nurse to death, beaten guards and hospital workers, and burned and looted treatment centers just to retrieve infected dead bodies for traditional burial," Don says.

Also, 121 health workers are infected in Ituri alone, and 36 have died per Don. Only 15% of planned infection-control triage units are functional for various reasons. The tracing system has no way to reach most of what is spreading. Nearly 1,000 health facilities have been checked to see if they're equipped to handle Ebola safely; however, only 1 in 50 passed. Also, 248 of the nearly 1,000 assessed health facilities already have at least one suspected or confirmed Ebola case inside them and most of those facilities are rated unequipped to handle the disease safely.

Don Foster feels that the international community far underestimated the resistance to treatment and far overestimated the impact of interventions under the control of the DRC government. He says, "Pray for miracles."

Could people and government leaders around the world be complacent or burnt out due to the Corona Virus event? Are they not concerned that people infected by Ebola will travel to other countries? Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here

Don also asks for prayer for Samaritan's Purse, Doctors Without Borders and other NGO's whose workers are true heroes, risking their lives. Don reminds us that Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends" (John 15:13).