DRC to be Declared Ebola Free
If no new cases of the deadly ebola disease are reported in the next two weeks, the World Health Organisation (WHO) will declare the vast Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) free from the epidemic.
It is almost a month since the authorities in the vast central African country announced that the last Ebola patient had been discharged from a treatment centre in the east of the country.
The announcement prompted WHO to give a 42-day timeframe – two incubation phases of the virus, to declare the country free of the disease.
In a tweet, the WHO Director General Dr. Tedrod Adhanom Ghebreyesus revealed that the declaration will most likely be made by mid-April.
“It’s been 40 days since the last Ebola case was confirmed in DRC and 25 days since the last person in treatment recovered and went home. If there are no new cases, the outbreak could be declared over by mid-April. We remain in active response mode in case of flare-ups,” Ghebreyesus stated.
On February 17, 2020, authorities reported the last case of the disease that infected more than 3,300 and claimed the lives of 2,264 people since August 2018.
And when the last patient was discharged on March 4, 2020, the WHO announced a countdown towards declaring an end to the epidemic.
