An American doctor treated in Berlin for Bundibugyo Ebola virus infection was discharged from Charité hospital along with five family members who had been quarantined as high-risk contacts. Medical officials said Peter Stafford had recovered clinically and repeatedly tested negative, while none of his relatives developed symptoms.
Stafford, a physician working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo with the Christian nonprofit Serge, tested positive in May and was transferred to Germany. He entered Charité’s specialized isolation unit on May 20 in a severely weakened condition. His symptoms subsided rapidly during the first week after he received a combination of antiviral therapy and supportive care.
Hospital monitoring showed his initial high viral load falling during treatment. Daily follow-up tests had detected no virus since May 30. Authorities lifted the isolation order after he had remained free of symptoms for more than 72 hours and produced repeated negative PCR results, in line with the criteria described by the hospital.
Five relatives, including four young children, were treated as high-risk contacts and quarantined at Charité. Their observation period lasted 21 days from their last high-risk exposure. Repeated laboratory tests found no Bundibugyo Ebola virus, and officials lifted their quarantine at noon on Saturday. A final medical examination cleared the family for discharge in good health.
Charité described the outcome as a significant therapeutic success. Leif Erik Sander, the hospital’s director of infectious diseases and critical care medicine, credited the range of specialist departments involved and said dedicated isolation infrastructure was essential for safely treating highly pathogenic infections.
Stafford said he had received experimental therapies being evaluated for the Bundibugyo strain and thanked the teams responsible for his care. He also drew attention to the unequal availability of such treatment, noting that people in Congo often do not have access to comparable resources. The supplied report did not name the experimental medicines or provide trial results, so the case cannot establish their effectiveness on its own.
The discharge offers evidence of recovery in one closely monitored patient, not a general conclusion about outcomes for everyone infected with the strain. It does, however, show the practical role of early intensive treatment, repeated molecular testing, specialist isolation facilities and formal contact monitoring. The relatives’ completion of quarantine without illness also closed the immediate chain of risk associated with the evacuated patient, according to the medical information released.
No onward infection was reported among the five monitored relatives. That result does not measure the broader transmissibility of the virus, because the group was small and managed under controlled conditions. It does confirm that officials completed the specified observation and testing process before releasing them, rather than relying only on the absence of visible symptoms.
