Ebola patient discharged from Berlin's Charité hospital

The doctor had been admitted to Charité on May 20. According to the university hospital, the rare Bundibugyo virus, a type of Ebola virus, was clearly detected in him using a PCR test. His wife and four children came to Berlin shortly afterwards. They were classified as "high-risk contacts" but had no symptoms and were quarantined in a separate part of the ward.

Patient thinks of people in Congo

The US patient himself thanked the Charité team: "I received first-class care, including experimental therapies that are currently being tested to treat this type of virus," he was quoted as saying in a Charité statement. "My gratitude cannot be adequately described in words. (...) Our thoughts are also with the people in Congo who do not have the opportunity to receive such care."

Ebola fever is a contagious and life-threatening disease. The virus is transmitted through physical contact and contact with bodily fluids. In the Democratic Republic of Congo in Central Africa, where the US-American was working, the latest Ebola outbreak is particularly difficult to contain. One of the reasons: There is as yet neither a vaccine nor a specific therapy for the Bundibugyo type.

Patient was in a special isolation ward

The Charité patient was flown from Uganda to Berlin on a special plane and then brought to the Charité under high security precautions. There he was treated in a special isolation ward on the Virchow-Klinikum campus.

This is a closed and protected unit, separate from regular hospital operations, so that no contact with other patients can occur. According to the Federal Ministry of Health, there was therefore no risk to the public or other patients.

Gradual improvement

Initially, the man was very weak and showed typical symptoms of an Ebola virus infection, according to the clinic. He also had a high viral load. In the course of a combined antiviral therapy and other accompanying medical measures, the signs of the disease had already significantly regressed over the course of the first week. His condition improved continuously and his laboratory values normalized.

"We are very pleased with the successful course of treatment and regard this as a significant therapeutic success," said Leif Erik Sander, Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Intensive Care Medicine at Charité. "Charité's special isolation ward has once again proven to be an indispensable component in the management of highly pathogenic infections."

Already many Ebola deaths in Africa

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda is still far from being under control.

According to the African health authority Africa CDC, there are now 381 confirmed cases in Congo, including 62 deaths. The WHO assumes a high number of unreported cases. In neighboring Uganda, 16 cases and 1 death have been confirmed so far.

According to the WHO, it is still difficult to isolate and monitor contacts of infected people. So far, local health workers have only managed to trace 45 percent of all people with whom Ebola-infected persons have been in contact. However, in order to stop the spread of the viral disease, it is necessary to identify 90 percent of all contact persons.

In 2014 and 2015, more than 11,000 people died in an Ebola epidemic in West Africa. Around 2,300 people died in the second most serious recorded outbreak from 2018 to 2020 in eastern Congo.