New Ebola cases in the DRC dash hopes that the outbreak was over

Today was meant to be the day that the long-running North Kivu Ebola outbreak was finally declared over. It would have been 42 days — two full incubation periods — since the last Ebola patient had tested negative twice for the virus and was discharged back into the community. But in a cruel twist, the health ministry of the Democratic Republic of the Congo reported on Friday that it had found a new case, a 26-year-old man in Beni who had died of the disease. Investigations are underway to pinpoint how the man became infected, but yesterday, authorities reported that a second person  — a "co-patient" of the 26-year-old patient — had also died of the disease. “We will continue … active surveillance,” said Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies program. “We’ll just have to go again for another 42 days.”