The World Health Organization on Friday announced the first recovery of a confirmed Ebola patient in the outbreak raging in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“The DRC has said that on May 27, a patient recovered and left the hospital and has been discharged into the community,” the WHO’s Anais Legand told reporters.

She said it marked the “first” among patients who had been confirmed to have Ebola, but stressed that she expected there had been other recoveries among people who have not yet received laboratory confirmation of test results.

“This is the first one” to be discharged from a care centre “following two negative tests”, said Legand, a WHO technical officer on viral haemorrhagic fevers.

She said the WHO had to date recorded 17 confirmed and 223 suspected Ebola deaths in the DR Congo since the outbreak was declared on May 15, out of 125 confirmed cases and over 900 suspected cases.

In neighbouring Uganda, seven cases have also been confirmed, including one death.