The first patient to recover in central Africa's Ebola outbreak has been discharged from hospital, the World Health Organisation said on Friday.
The announcement came a day after WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus visited the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the outbreak began, with the vow that “we will get through this”.
The WHO also revealed on Friday that there were 906 suspected cases of Ebola in DR Congo, with 223 deaths being investigated.
The death rate is 30 to 50 per cent among those confirmed to have the virus, said Anais Legand from the WHO's high-threat pathogens team. “It's huge. It means that up to five out of 10 people are likely to die,” she said. Early care could help drive down the death rates, she said.
The first recovered patient was discharged from a health centre in DR Congo after receiving two negative tests.
The WHO said testing capacity is being improved and that it was hopeful that most of the backlog of test samples from suspected cases will be processed in the coming days.
The number of suspected cases is likely to go up, Ms Legand said, but added that this was a sign that surveillance is working. “As for whether the peak has passed, investigations are still ongoing. I don’t think we can say that at this stage,” she said.
The Bundibugyo strain has also spread to Uganda, where health officials reported nine confirmed cases on Friday. Some Gulf countries have restricted travel from DR Congo, Uganda and nearby South Sudan.
The outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain, for which there is no vaccine, has been declared a public health emergency of international concern by the WHO. It has alarmed experts because of how long it went undetected while spreading across a densely populated area.
The region is also the scene of armed conflict that makes the situation more difficult. Dr Tedros appealed to fighters before his visit to DR Congo to declare a ceasefire “even briefly, even just enough to let health workers through”.
