The Ebola outbreak declared in May in Uganda, originating after the detection of cases days earlier in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), is officially considered over this Thursday, once 42 days without additional infections have been completed since the discharge of the last patient treated in the African country.
"Uganda has shown that, with decisive measures, Ebola outbreaks can be quickly controlled," said the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at the conclusion of this countdown, which corresponds to two maximum incubation periods of the virus.
"By focusing on preparedness, intensifying surveillance to detect possible cases in health centers and communities, and carefully managing points of entry, countries can maintain the circulation of people and goods, while ensuring the safety of the population and that they receive medical attention if they are sick," he emphasized.
In the same vein, the Director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC Africa), Jean Kaseya, stressed that "Uganda has shown that Ebola can be halted when leaders act decisively, trust communities, and public health systems reach the population quickly."
"This is a victory for Uganda and an important lesson for our continent. Now we must protect this achievement and, at the same time, accelerate the response in the DRC," Kaseya added. "We will only be safe when transmission is stopped everywhere," he noted, according to a joint statement from both institutions.
During this outbreak, Ugandan authorities recorded a total of 20 Ebola infections, of which 15 were imported from the DRC and five occurred through local transmission among close contacts and healthcare personnel. Of those affected, 18 patients recovered from the disease, while two died as a result of the virus.
In parallel, the authorities of the Democratic Republic of the Congo reported in their latest report 5,656 confirmed cases of Ebola since the outbreak was declared on May 15, with a toll of 2,715 deaths. This is already the deadliest episode in the country's history, surpassing that recorded between 2018 and 2020, and projections indicate that it could exceed the outbreak of 2014-2016 in West Africa, which left 28,616 cases and 11,325 deaths in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
RDC —which in December 2025 announced the end of another outbreak, in this case in the Kasai region— is considered the country with the greatest global experience in managing the Ebola virus, having faced more than a dozen outbreaks since the pathogen was identified in 1976, in a double episode whose epicenter was partly in the Congolese locality of Yambuku, on the banks of the Ebola River, which gave its name to the disease.