The DRC Ministry of Public Health made the announcement after no new cases had been reported 42 days after the last patient was discharged from a treatment centre in Beni, North Kivu. This was well beyond the virus’ three-week incubation period.

WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the disease had taken a heavy toll.

“The outbreak took so much from all of us, especially from the people of DRC, but we came out of it with valuable lessons and valuable tools. The world is now better equipped to respond to Ebola. A vaccine has been licensed, and effective treatments identified,” Tedros said.

The outbreak is the second-biggest Ebola epidemic ever recorded. The West Africa outbreak – mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone – killed more than 11,000 during 2014 and 2016.

Tedros warned against complacency, saying that “viruses do not take breaks” and that strong surveillance was needed to detect flare-ups, especially in western DRC where Ebola cases had recently been reported.

“Ultimately, the best defence against any outbreak is investing in a stronger health system as the foundation for universal health coverage,” he said.

Ebola ‘no longer incurable’ after discovery of new treatments

The Ebola virus is highly contagious and has fatality rates about 50 per cent. It can stay longer in survivors’ eyes and testes, which has been known to trigger new clusters.

Jean-Jacques Muyembe, who is director general of the DRC’s National Institute for Biomedical Research and also famed for discovering the Ebola virus in 1976, said that in the eastern DRC there was a large group of people who had recovered but “they’re a potential source of transmitting this disease sexually”.

“During the almost two years we fought the Ebola virus, the WHO and partners helped strengthen the capacity of local health authorities to manage outbreaks,” said Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa. “It wasn’t easy, and at times it seemed like a mission impossible.”

On June 1, seven Ebola cases were reported in Mbandaka city and neighbouring Bikoro Health Zone in Equateur province that led to the declaration of an 11th Ebola outbreak. Some 24 people in the province have been infected and 13 have died from Ebola-related complications.

Genetic sequencing conducted on samples found the outbreak is not linked to the one in the east. Equateur was previously affected by Ebola in 2018 and 33 people died. Then there is a coronavirus, which has infected 6,411 people and killed 142 as of Thursday.

The DRC is among the world’s largest producers of copper and cobalt but a coronavirus-fuelled economic slump hit commodity prices, sending the central African nation into financial crisis.

Early this month, Nobel Peace laureate Denis Mukwege resigned as head of a task force fighting Covid-19 in the eastern DRC, citing a lack of help from the government. He said the lack of laboratories for testing had frustrated the team’s work.

Wellcome Trust, a London-based medical research charity, described the end of Ebola in eastern DRC as “a truly remarkable achievement that in just five years since the West African 2014-16 epidemic, we have an approved vaccine and proven treatments that can reduce the threat of Ebola in the future”.

However, Josie Golding, epidemics lead at the Wellcome Trust, said because of the worrying increase in Ebola cases in Mbandaka and the rising number of Covid-19 cases in the region, it was vital to support the DRC and other countries with fragile health systems.

The DRC, which is one of the world’s poorest countries, is also battling the world’s largest measles epidemic, which has killed more than 6,000 people.