Ebola Outbreak Over in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Today the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the global health community mark the end of the Ebola outbreak in North Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The DRC Ministry of Health (MOH) and the World Health Organization made the declaration after reaching 42 days with no new cases following the last survivor testing negative and being discharged from an Ebola treatment unit. This Ebola outbreak, DRC’s 12th, was announced on February 7, 2021.

“CDC commends the DRC Ministry of Health and partners whose work helped bring this outbreak to an end,” said CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH. “We are proud to have been part of the effort and remain committed to supporting the DRC’s efforts to assist outbreak survivors, prevent future outbreaks, and quickly detect and respond to any new cases of Ebola. Our hearts are with the families who lost loved ones due to this deadly disease.”

Recent Ebola outbreaks, including this one, have demonstrated the ability of persistent infections in survivors to start new outbreaks or spark new and ongoing transmission within an existing outbreak. To better understand these linkages between cases and across outbreaks, CDC helped the DRC MOH establish a mobile genetic sequencing lab in Goma and will continue to provide technical assistance as more is learned about sexual transmission of the virus and relapse in survivors.

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