While the entire world is following with anxiety the development of the new coronavirus epidemic sweeping across the health of the entire planet, Africa brings extraordinary news: after 19 months, the second worst Ebola epidemic in history — and the first in a wartime context — has come to an end in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Read also: Ebola exists. The account of a day in Congo, at the heart of the epidemic

An epidemic lasting a year and a half

Over this year and a half, what is considered the most lethal virus in the world has caused the deaths of 2,264 people in the eastern regions of the African state and has resulted in more than 3,400 infections.

It was the first Ebola epidemic in history in terms of the number of children affected: 30 per cent of the victims were under 14 years of age, and in July the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an international emergency for the fourth time in history.

Read also: Congo, serious Ebola epidemic threatens humans and gorillas

No new Ebola cases recorded in Congo for 14 days

At present, fourteen days have passed without any new case. From a medical standpoint, it is necessary to wait 42 days before being able to declare the African country definitively free of the infection, but in the streets of Beni — the Congolese city in North Kivu that served as the epicentre of the outbreak — people are already celebrating and rejoicing.

During these 570 days of the disease's spread, the city — besieged among other things by rebel groups, including the Islamist militias of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) — saw its population living alongside a death that forced its way into everyday life.

More than fifteen burials a day, hearses and ambulances following one another through the streets, the isolation of the sick and the removal of the dead. A nightmare that now appears to be over — and this is confirmed by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who commented: "This is not just good news for me — it is wonderful news for the entire world."

WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic, however, urged caution given the state of war that persists in the eastern regions of the African country and the difficulty of tracing patients, stating: "Given the complexity of the situation, we must be prudent in our assessments, because a single case could cause the epidemic to flare up again."

Read also: Médecins Sans Frontières. Photographs of a year of humanitarian commitment

Society was divided on how to tackle the Ebola epidemic

In any case, in Congo, an internal conflict developed as a consequence of Ebola — between those working to combat the spread of contagion and that large section of the population which, driven by conspiracy theories, suspicion and superstition, regarded the virus as a secret plan by shadowy powers seeking to exterminate the Congolese population in order to seize the country's underground resources.

This polarisation of society degenerated into armed clashes; some doctors were murdered, several health centres were set on fire, and some survivors of the virus still live in hiding today, stigmatised and threatened by many. "I survived Ebola but I lost all my relatives. My mother, my father, my husband and my son, who was a newborn of just two months. I have no one left and I must live alone and isolated because people accuse me of being the cause of my loved ones' deaths," recounted Roseline Kavira Lukando, a woman from Beni haunted by grief even after surviving the most lethal disease in the world.

The challenge that Congo now faces is therefore one of finding cohesion and social unity, as explained by Jeanpaul Kapitula, head of Civil Protection in Beni: "Ebola has caused a fracture within the population. With the epidemic over, the people of Congo must be able to react and demonstrate strong resilience. Only by remaining united and putting past violence and factionalism behind us will we be able to recover — otherwise the crisis will continue even in the absence of the virus."