A town left to fight Ebola alone

A burial team carries the body of seven-year-old Josue Ddirokpa toward a cemetery in Mangala, on Sept 6. What happened in Mangala, where residents were left with little outside support, helps explain how this outbreak became the worst seen in the Democratic Republic of Congo. — Arlette Bashizi/The New York Times

ON a hilltop in eastern Congo, work has begun on a new Ebola centre to help contain the virus in Mangala and surrounding villages.

Local health workers say it is too late. Many lives could have been saved had efforts to combat the virus begun in June, rather than ramped up in August.