Berlin’s Charité hospital announced on Saturday that Dr. Peter Stafford, a 39-year-old American, has fully recovered after more than two weeks of Ebola treatment. He was discharged in good health and no longer requires isolation.
Dr. Stafford worked for a missionary organization in Congo and was infected while performing surgery on an Ebola patient in the eastern part of the country. He was found to have the Bundibugyo strain, a rare type of Ebola, and was flown from Uganda to Berlin on a specialized aircraft on May 20.
His wife and four children, though asymptomatic, were initially classified as high-risk and placed under quarantine. Their isolation order was also lifted on the same day.
Speaking from the hospital, Stafford said he had been treated with experimental therapies for the virus and expressed deep gratitude to the medical team. However, he added: “Our thoughts remain with the people of Congo, who do not have access to such care.”
Dr. Leif Erik Sander, director of the infectious diseases department at Charité, called the recovery a “significant therapeutic success.”
No vaccine has yet been approved for the Bundibugyo strain, although three vaccines are under study and being prepared for rapid trials.
In a separate development, the World Health Organization reported that the new Ebola outbreak, which began in eastern Congo and has spread to Uganda, remains uncontrolled. On Saturday, Congo announced that the total number of Ebola cases had risen to 488, including 86 deaths. Uganda has confirmed 19 cases and two deaths.
Uganda has largely closed its western border with Congo to prevent cross-border transmission, causing hardship for traders who depend on the crossing.
The WHO has declared a global health emergency. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that this outbreak could become the largest Ebola epidemic in history, rivaling the 2014-2016 pandemic in West Africa.
