Health workers dance as the last patients leave an Ebola centre in DR Congo
Médecins Sans Frontières' Ebola treatment centre in Mongbwalu, Ituri, has no confirmed patients for the first time since May, and its staff celebrated with song and dance. It is one facility only: the outbreak is still active and has passed 10,000 confirmed cases in DR Congo.
Green scrubs, white rubber boots and a lot of clapping. Staff at the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Ebola treatment centre in Mongbwalu, in Ituri province, Democratic Republic of Congo, sang and danced as they said goodbye to the last two patients on the ward. For the first time since May, the centre has nobody under treatment for confirmed Ebola.
MSF released the video on 28 October. The next day the WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, shared it: “This joyful dance marked the discharge of the last two patients from the Ebola Treatment Centre in Mongbwalu.” He added that the facility had recorded no new positive cases in five days, although suspected cases remain under surveillance.
The celebration, in a video provided by MSF. Filmed by Carla Schwanfelder for Médecins Sans Frontières.
A moment of joy in a brutal outbreak
Mongbwalu, a mining area in Ituri, was one of the first hotspots of this outbreak, declared on 15 May and caused by the Bundibugyo species of the virus, for which there is still no approved vaccine. Several candidates have been under test in the Tumaini trial in Bunia since 23 October.
Discharges matter too: according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), 2,708 people with confirmed Ebola have recovered in the country.
The outbreak is not over
That caveat matters. This is one centre, not the province or the country. With data up to 26 October, the ECDC counted 10,141 confirmed cases and 4,928 deaths in DR Congo across eight provinces, with Ituri still the hardest hit. The celebration in Mongbwalu does not mean new patients cannot arrive.
