A British man being treated for Ebola in Congo is being evacuated to the United Kingdom, the government announced Thursday.
The patient, who is believed to be a healthcare worker, is the first British national to be evacuated from the current Ebola outbreak in Congo. This marks the third case of an Ebola patient being returned to Europe for treatment.
The individual is expected to receive care at the Royal Free Hospital in London, a facility equipped with a high-level isolation unit that previously handled patients during the 2014-2015 West Africa Ebola outbreak. The Foreign Office stated that UK procedures for managing infectious diseases have been activated and that the risk to the public remains low.
France confirmed a case in June of a doctor who had returned from a humanitarian mission in Congo; the doctor has since recovered. Separately, a Swiss woman, who is believed to have contracted the virus in Uganda, was medically evacuated to Geneva last month, and her husband, a diplomat, was placed in isolation in Zurich.
The ongoing Ebola outbreak in some of Congo's more remote provinces has infected 10,600 people, resulting in over 5,100 deaths. The disease has spread to 67 health zones across eight provinces, an increase from the three zones initially affected when the outbreak was declared in May.
Dr. Damien Tully, an infectious disease expert at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, commented that the infection of a British healthcare worker is concerning but not entirely unexpected. "Healthcare workers are on the front line of these outbreaks, often treating severely ill patients under extremely challenging conditions," Tully said. "Even with rigorous protective measures, accidental exposures can occur."