Kinshasa, Zaire -- News that two suspected Ebola carriers sought by authorities had been found -- and probably were not infected with the virus -- left few people here relieved yesterday as the national death toll from the disease reached 86.

"This place is crawling with people from Kikwit," the officially quarantined city where the epidemic began, according to a young Zairean official who asked not to be identified. "Go to LeCite [Kinshasa's sprawling slum] and you will see. People are coming right in."

Another man, a physician who refused to give his name out of fear of government reprisals, said he had cared for a Swedish pilot who had violated the quarantine, flying several times in and out of Kikwit. Though the pilot does not have Ebola, the doctor said, "It just shows this [the government's quarantine effort] is all a big lie!"

Street vendors, meanwhile, say they have had no trouble obtaining fruits and vegetables from Bandundu Province. The entire province was ordered quarantined last week after Ebola virus cases were first reported in several villages there, as well as in its main city of Kikwit, 250 miles southeast of Kinshasa.

In their questions at a news conference yesterday, Zairean journalists for the first time voiced concerns that many people on the streets of Kinshasa -- and even in western embassies -- have been whispering for days. "Are there really enough scientists [in Kikwit]?" the reporters asked. "Do they know what they are doing?"

The international relief and research team in Kikwit comprises 10 specialists, nearly all of whom are either virologists or epidemiologists.

According to high-level Zairean sources, the specialists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been pressured by circumstances into devoting most of their time to treating Ebola sufferers. And none of the scientists has the kind of animal ecology expertise that might lead to the source of the deadly microbe.

In Atlanta, C.J. Peters, who heads the Special Pathogens branch of the CDC, said a much larger and more diverse team is needed.

Meanwhile, World Health Organization officials yesterday insisted that the epidemic has entered a controlled phase with the new cases reaching a plateau.

Officially, 93 people have contracted the hemorrhagic fever. The virus causes uncontrolled bleeding throughout the body and kills up to 90 percent of those infected; there is no cure or vaccine.

No cases have been reported in Kinshasa, but officials say that new cases are surfacing in four neighboring towns and villages.

Yesterday, Kinshasa police found the two suspected Ebola carriers who had been at large in the capital.

The first, a Congo River boat captain, was examined by Ministry of Public Health officials and found free of Ebola infection. The second, a nurse who had fled the Kikwit hospital as the virus swept through the medical staff earlier this month, is now being held under observation.

The nurse is said to be running a high fever, but Lonyangela Bompenda, secretary general of the Ministry of Public Health, said in a news conference last night that government doctors weren't sure "what is ailing her." However, Agence France Press reported last night that doctors suspect the cause is typhoid.