WHO Says “End in Sight” for Ebola in the DRC

Reuters

Semi­da Masi­ka, the last patient being treat­ed for Ebo­la in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Con­go, is seen after she was dis­charged from hos­pi­tal in Beni, Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Con­go March 3, 2020.

The news that the Ebo­la epi­dem­ic in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Con­go (DRC) is near­ing the end did not receive the news cov­er­age it deserves.  Instead, what we heard about the most was cov­er­age of the coro­n­avirus which con­tin­ues to spread around the world. 

Ebo­la in the DRC in 2018, as well as Ebo­la in three West African nations of Guinea, Liberia, and Sier­ra Leone in 2014, and the years after, made some of the biggest news head­lines when the dis­ease claimed many lives. This is why it is inter­est­ing that the last patient with the dis­ease in the DRC was released just when the coro­n­avirus is spread­ing around the world.

Accord­ing to a World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) state­ment, the last patient with Ebo­la in the DRC was released on Tues­day, March 3. The orga­ni­za­tion mean­while cau­tioned that “flare-ups” may occur.

“Remem­ber that dur­ing the Ebo­la out­break in West Africa flare-ups of new cas­es occurred after the end of the out­break,” Dr. Ibrahi­ma Socé Fall, Assis­tant Direc­tor-Gen­er­al for Emer­gency Response said in a statement.

Here are some of the head­lines about this sto­ry, seen on Google, and as report­ed by CNN Inter­na­tion­al, Al Jazeera, The Con­ver­sa­tion Africa, and Nature.

Google

Cov­er­age of the WHO’s dec­la­ra­tion that an “end in sight” for Ebo­la in the DRC.