Ebola outbreak in the east of Congo has been declared over.

Congolese officials proclaimed the end of an Ebola outbreak that had killed at least six people since October, the country’s restive east’s latest health threat.

The most current outbreak broke out in North Kivu province, the same region of Congo where more than 2,200 people died in an earlier Ebola outbreak in 2018.

Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa, said Congolese health workers had been able to “reduce widespread infections and save lives.”

“With every outbreak episode, critical lessons are gained and used,” she said.

According to WHO, the initial case from the newest outbreak “possibly reflected a new flare-up of the 2018–2020 Ebola outbreak due to the virus’s persistence in the community.”

Scientists have previously identified Ebola survivors who, long after they had recovered, unwittingly infected others. For example, health officials have cautioned that the virus can live for more than a year in the sperm of male survivors.

The freshly terminated outbreak was Congo’s 13th Ebola outbreak, with another outbreak in North Kivu occurring between February and May of this year.

North Kivu, which is home to a slew of armed factions, has proven particularly tough to contain.

While immunizations could be delivered to those at risk for the first time during the 2018-2020 pandemic, instability in rural regions prohibited health workers from safely visiting many. Vaccination and contact monitoring teams faced some of the same issues this time around, according to WHO.