Barring new cases, the patient’s recovery begins a 42-day countdown to declare the country’s sixteenth outbreak over.
Posted on October 19, 2025
The last Ebola patient in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been discharged from a treatment center in Kasai province, according to the United Nations health agency.
The patient is the 19th to recover out of a total of 64 cases recorded since the outbreak was declared in September, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement on Sunday.
Recommended stories
list of 3 itemsend of list
If no new cases are discovered in the next 42 days, the outbreak will be declared over.
Mohamed Janabi, WHO’s Africa director, said the recovery was a “remarkable achievement” given the outbreak began just six weeks ago.
“The country’s strong response, with the support of WHO and its partners, was fundamental to this achievement,” he added in a social media post.
In a video alongside the post on X, health workers are seen celebrating as the last patient left the treatment center in Bulape.
Today, the last #ebola patient in Bulape, #DRC was discharged from the treatment center.
The country’s strong response, with the support of WHO and its partners, was fundamental to this achievement. A 42-day countdown to declare an end to the outbreak has already begun.
Until then, @WHO and… pic.twitter.com/YTEpGzYwPW
— Prof. Mohamed Janabi (@ProfJanabi) October 19, 2025
The outbreak, which is the 16th to date in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was declared on September 4 when Ebola cases appeared in the Bulape and Mweka areas of Kasai province in the southwest of the country.
Since then, the WHO has counted 53 confirmed and 11 probable cases, and patients show typical Ebola symptoms, such as fever, vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding. Forty-five people have died.
Remote Kasai province has proven difficult to reach, although it may have helped prevent the spread of the virus, health officials said.
Still, the WHO deployed response teams and established a 32-bed treatment center for the first time “outside of a simulation exercise” in the region, the organization said. More than 35,000 people have received vaccines 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 Democratic Republic of the Congo. Without treatment, up to 90 percent of cases are fatal, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The largest outbreak occurred between 2014 and 2016 in West Africa, eventually infecting 28,600 and killing 11,325 people, with the disease also spreading to Europe and the United States.
The most recent outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo occurred in 2022 and involved only one recorded case of the virus.
