Some good news out of the DRC at last — the first confirmed Ebola patient has beaten the virus and gone home.

As reported by cbinews.tv, the World Health Organisation shared some rare, good news on Friday: the first person with a lab-confirmed case of Ebola in the DRC’s latest outbreak has officially recovered.

“The DRC has said that on May 27, a patient recovered and left the hospital and has been discharged into the community,” WHO’s Anaïs Legand told reporters.

Now, she did point out this is just the “first” confirmed case we know about. There are probably others who’ve recovered too, but they haven’t had their lab tests come back yet to make it official. This patient is the first to actually walk out of a care centre “following two negative tests”, Legand explained.

So where do things stand overall? According to Legand, the WHO has logged 17 confirmed Ebola deaths and 223 suspected ones since the outbreak was declared on May 15. That’s from 125 confirmed cases and more than 900 suspected ones.

The tough bit is there’s still no vaccine or specific treatment for the Bundibugyo strain causing this outbreak. It can kill up to 50% of those infected. Right now, for the cases we know about, the fatality rate looks to be sitting below 25% — but that figure’s still shifting.

The big takeaway from Legand, who’s a WHO technical officer on viral haemorrhagic fevers, is that getting care early makes a massive difference. “We are expecting more people to recover,” she said. And honestly, after weeks of grim updates, that’s the bit we’re holding onto.

Attribution: cbinews.tv

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