While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread, a sliver of good news came out of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on June 25, when the government officially declared an end to the country’s long-running Ebola outbreak. The announcement, following 42 days since the last confirmed case, brings an end to the country’s tenth and largest outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever. The DRC’s success also serves as a lesson in resilience to other countries now battling COVID-19.

First detected in August 2018, the Ebola outbreak was contained after 22 months of intense control efforts by the World Health Organization (WHO), the DRC Ministry of Health, and other international and local partners, including UNICEF and Médecins Sans Frontières. All told there were 3,470 cases and 2,287 deaths, making it second in size only to the 2014–16 Ebola epidemic in West Africa. The outbreak’s epicenter was the restive eastern provinces of North Kivu and Ituri—an active conflict zone which is also facing a large-scale humanitarian crisis. Read more