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22-10-2025
KINSHASA: The last Ebola patient in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been released from a treatment centre in Kasai province, according to the United Nations health agency.
The patient is the 19th to recover out of 64 total cases recorded since the outbreak was declared in September, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement on Sunday.
If no new cases are discovered in the next 42 days, the outbreak will be declared over.
Mohamed Janabi, the WHO’s director for Africa, said the recovery was a “remarkable achievement”, given the outbreak began just six weeks ago.
“The country’s robust response, with support from WHO and partners, was pivotal to this achievement,” he added in a social media post.
In a video alongside the post on X, health workers were seen celebrating as the final patient exited the treatment centre in Bulape.
The outbreak, which is the DRC’s 16th to date, was declared on September 4 as Ebola cases appeared in the Bulape and Mweka areas of the Kasai province in the country’s southwest.
Since then, the WHO has tallied 53 confirmed and 11 probable cases, with patients showing typical Ebola symptoms such as fever, vomiting; diarrhea and hemorrhaging. Forty-five people have died.
The remote Kasai province has proven challenging to reach, even as it may have helped to prevent the spread of the virus, health officials have said.
Still, the WHO deployed response teams and set up a 32-bed treatment centre for the first time “outside a simulation exercise” in the region, the organization said. More than 35,000 people have received vaccinations in the Bulape area.
No new cases have been identified since September 25.
Ebola was first identified in 1976 after an outbreak in what is now the DRC. Without treatment, up to 90 percent of cases are fatal, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The largest outbreak occurred from 2014 to 2016 in West Africa, ultimately infecting 28,600 and killing 11,325 people, with the disease also spreading to Europe and the United States.
The DRC’s most recent outbreak occurred in 2022 and involved just one recorded case of the virus.
In 2022, DRC had declared an end to its latest Ebola virus outbreak, according to officials.
The outbreak, the 15th recorded in the country, emerged when one case was confirmed in the eastern city of Beni, in North Kivu province, on August 22 but the outbreak was the virus’s “least catastrophic” since no other case was recorded, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement on Tuesday.
Testing showed the case was genetically linked to the 2018-2020 outbreak in North Kivu and Ituri provinces, which killed nearly 2,300 people.
“After 42 days of reinforced surveillance without a new confirmed case … I am happy to solemnly declare the end of the 15th epidemic … that lasted one month and 12 days,” the DRC’s Minister of Public Health Mbungani Mbanda said in a separate statement.
Ebola is an often fatal viral haemorrhagic fever. Human transmission is through body fluids, with the main symptoms being fever, vomiting, bleeding and diarrhoea.
The death rate is typically high, ranging up to 90 percent in some outbreaks, according to the WHO. (Int’l News Desk)
