In my typescript project I am trying to fetch a user from database. Since it is possible that the specific user will not be found, I want to wrap the call inside a try-catch block:

try {
    const currentUser = await User.findOrFail(ctx.params.id)
} catch (e) {
    return ctx.response.status(409).json({ error: 'User not found' })
}

However, since I need the user outside the try-catch block, this code will raise an error (currentUser is not defined):

try {
    const currentUser = await User.findOrFail(ctx.params.id)
} catch (e) {
    return ctx.response.status(409).json({ error: 'User not found' })
}

  :
  : 

return { user: currentUser }

I want to keep the try-catch block wrapping only the fetch call (since later i might have other exceptions). Using var instead of const (or let) will do the work, but I got the impression that using var is not recommended.

Ideas?