Health care for EHF patients collapsed towards the end November, when the influx of patients increased drastically (9 patients within 3 days) and deaths from the virus increased including six HCWs and patients in the Ebola ward. These events revived fears and even panic among many staff members. Clinical staff stayed away from the Ebola ward, drivers absconded, and community volunteers could no longer be recruited, for digging graves (a no-risk activity) or as cleaners. When the crisis reached its maximum, there were four dead bodies on the Ebola ward for more than 48 h. Because body fluids tend to leak out of corpses in abundance, dead bodies are a significant source of contamination and must be disinfected, put into a body bag and buried swiftly. Furthermore, the prolonged presence of a dead body on the isolation ward is frightening and appalling and undermines the willingness of hospital staff to work on the Ebola ward and of probable cases, namely among HCWs, to accept hospitalisation. The nosocomial transmission of SEBOV from mother to child likely happened in this phase. Only the prevailing confusion can explain why the infant was not separated from its mother suffering from EHF.