DR Congo defeats deadly Ebola once again

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‍The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has declared its two-month Ebola outbreak officially over after going 42 days without recording any new case of the disease.

The outbreak in DR Congo’s remote northeastern forests, a record eighth for the country where the disease was first discovered in 1976, killed four out of the eight people infected, Health Minister Oly Ilunga said in a statement on Saturday.

“I declare on this day, at midnight, the end of the outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever of the Ebola virus in DRC,” Ilunga said.

Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso at a press conference following a conference on Ebola on March 3, 2015 in Brussels. /VCG Photo

Congolese health authorities approved the use of a new experimental vaccine but ultimately declined to deploy it due to the small scale of the outbreak and logistical challenges.

The latest outbreak came a year after the end of the virus’ deadliest episode in West Africa, which killed more than 11,300 people and infected some 28,600 as it swept through Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and caused alarm around the world.

A Doctors Without Borders (MSF) doctor taking care of an Ebola patient at an MSF isolation ward in Kampungu, DRC on September 29, 2007. /VCG Photo

Health officials say northeastern Congo’s remote geography combined with the country’s experience fighting the disease allowed them to gain the upper hand quickly.

“The government of DRC has been very transparent in declaring that there is the outbreak and that really facilitated… communication and information sharing and rapid action,” Ibrahima Soce Fall, a senior World Health Organization official in Africa, told Reuters last week.

(Source: Reuters)

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