On May 3, 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the end of the 12th Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, just three months after the first case was reported in North Kivu. The Ebola outbreak that re-emerged in February came nine months after another outbreak in the same province was declared over.

The World Health Organization (WHO) congratulates the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s health authorities and the heath workers on the ground for their swift response which built on the country’s previous experience in tackling Ebola outbreaks. This outbreak was the country’s fourth in less than three years.

Eleven confirmed cases and one probable case, six deaths and six recoveries were recorded in four health zones in North Kivu since 7 February when the Ministry of Health announced the resurgence of Ebola in Butembo, a city in North Kivu Province and one of the hotspots of the 2018–2020 outbreak. Results from genome sequencing conducted by the country’s National Institute of Biomedical Research found that the first Ebola case detected in the outbreak was linked to the previous outbreak, but the source of infection had yet to be determined.