One of the largest Ebola outbreaks in history is spreading in Central Africa.

The World Health Organization's tally of confirmed and suspected cases is around 1,000.

And health workers say that's likely a major undercount.

The epicenter of the outbreak is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC.

What we are witnessing in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC. What we are witnessing in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo today

is not simply an Ebola outbreak in isolation.

It is an epidemic unfolding within an already fragile humanitarian context.

That's Robert Petron Messi.

He worked for the international non-profit Oxfam in the DRC,

and he sent us a voice memo describing why the epidemic is so hard to control.

Not only is there no vaccine for this strain of the virus,

which spreads through bodily fluids,

but in the towns where

it's running rampant, many people aren't able to quarantine.

Families are frequently living in small share spaces where isolation is simply not possible.

In the DRC, several crises are coalescing, prolonged economic hardship, a history of conflict,

and now this outbreak.

While the northeast region of the DRC is seeing the worst of it so far,

Ebola has begun to make its way across the nearby border into Uganda, where workers and officials

are racing to contain the spread. Uganda closed its official border crossings with Congo just a few

days ago. Even so, we still have a number of porous border points whereby people continue to

cross over.

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