In July 2019, residents of Beni in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo formed a physical queue to receive Ebola vaccination. An Associated Press photograph, published during the outbreak that had begun in 2018, directly records Beni residents lining up for vaccination.\n\nThis campaign was part of an epidemic response that traced networks of contact rather than an ordinary universal vaccination programme. The image cannot establish each person’s feelings or exact waiting time. It does directly establish the place, period, purpose and an ordered line of residents moving toward vaccination.