Come midnight, gold-diggers, hawkers, and prostitutes alike flood the bars of Kamituga, eastern DR Congo, with some blaming the mining town’s nightlife for the spreading mpox outbreak.

“Life in Kamituga drives people to sin,” said Bitama Sebuhuni, a prospector who was hospitalized after getting the potentially fatal viral disease after unprotected sex.

Kamituga, known for its goldmines, was the epicenter of the mpox outbreak that has plagued the Democratic Republic of Congo since September, according to the country’s health authorities.

Abandoned by Belgian enterprises in the 1990s, its rich mineral veins have subsequently drew a diverse range of DIY diggers and enthusiastic prospectors from various backgrounds.

Kamituga’s colonial-era buildings, which are officially home to 300,000 people, have been eclipsed by a line of gold-buying bureaus, mining equipment businesses, and nightclubs. Local sources estimate the population to be double that.

With the virus transmitted from person to person via close personal contact, these facilities provide an ideal setting for mpox to spread.

After a long day of working in the mines, gold-rush Kamituga’s pitmen emerge to spend their money in quest of close companionship and what Sebuhuni referred to as “atmosphere”.

“When we talk about atmosphere, in our country we talk about women, prostitutes and alcohol,” Sebuhuni said. “I used to sleep with prostitutes like this, without control or protection”.

– Nightclubs and prostitutes _

The prospector was being treated in the Kamituga hospital’s verdant mpox isolation facility, a rare respite from the chaos of the town hub.

Around “20 percent of our patients were contaminated by sexual transmission,” said doctor Dally Muamba Kambaji of the ALIMA international medical NGO, emphasizing that “the condom does not protect” from mpox.

The hospital’s doctors were the first to be confronted with mpox’s reappearance in September 2023.

“We noticed unusual skin lesions on the manager of a nightclub,” stated doctor James Wakilonga Zanguilwa.

“When we noticed that certain loose women in the same nightclub had started to develop similar lesions we sounded the alarm,” according to the doctor.

The “Mambengeti” nightclub may have closed, but its name lingers on as the local term for mpox, which spread in Kamituga primarily through prostitutes.

They have their own district and association as they roam the town’s alleys and dives.

Its members, who came from as far away as the DRC’s neighbors, convened in a tavern located at the end of a network of passageways.

The establishment, known as “The Sage’s Corner,” welcomed both gold miners and traders, with a Congolese intelligence officer keeping an eye on things.

– Pimps and prostitutes –

About a dozen members of the group sat on worn sofas around a table in the first-floor bar, which was stocked with lukewarm drinks.

Nicole Mubukwa, heavily made-up with a blonde wig tucked under a scarf, fake eyelashes, and huge gold earrings, spoke on camera without reluctance despite the region’s persisting stigma against her occupation.

A little attention wouldn’t hurt, she reasoned, especially since mpox was terrible for business.

“Since the outbreak of this disease, customers have been few and far between,” Mubukwa said with sorrow.

According to the women, many afflicted women keep their sickness hidden in order to avoid losing valuable earnings.

“I was infected without knowing it and that was tough for me because I couldn’t sleep with a man,” said Alice, another member of the “association”.

“It’s just like with AIDS, everyone hides it.”

Alice said she earns between 3,000 and 10,000 Congolese francs (around one to 3.5 dollars) for each engagement.

She said that she came from the provincial capital Bukavu, where salaries are less generous.

That decision was taken on her own volition, she claimed, albeit under the watchful and unwieldy gaze of the madam seated nearby.

Back at the hospital, another prostitute, who preferred to remain unidentified, told AFP that pimp gangs mislead young women into selling their bodies.

The pimps initially offer Kamituga a free ticket with the promise of a job as a waitress in town, before insisting that they repay them for the expense of transportation, she added.

Despite the poor quality of the roads connecting Kamituga to the rest of the DRC, the virus has spread throughout the province of South Kivu.

And now the province is the hub of the pandemic in the country—itself the worst struck by mpox in Africa.