UPDATE: LAST EBOLA PATIENT DISCHARGED IN DR CONGO

A Congolese health worker administers the Ebola vaccine to a child in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo [File: Olivia Acland/Reuters]
 
AL JAZEERA

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, diarrhoea and haemorrhaging. 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 organisation 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.