Five patients have recovered from a rare type of Ebola virus, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said Sunday during a visit to Bunia in eastern Congo, a city at the heart of an outbreak.

“Four people will be discharged today and there was one that was discharged the day before yesterday,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during the opening of a new Ebola treatment centre in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province.

“Of course, we're still working on vaccines and treatments but that doesn't mean that people cannot recover from Ebola,” he added.