LONDON (AP) — A British doctor who worked on Congo’s Ebola outbreak was evacuated Thursday to a London hospital to be treated for the virus, the British government said.
The man is the first British patient evacuated from the current outbreak of the deadly virus, and the third person to test positive to return to Europe.
The doctor was flown to the UK as part of a medical evacuation organized by the British and Congolese governments and their international health partners.
He was taken to the Royal Free Hospital in London, which has a high-level isolation unit that was used to treat patients from an Ebola outbreak in West Africa between 2014 and 2015.
Dr Renu Bindra, from the UK Health Security Agency, said robust infection prevention and control protocols are in place and the risk to the public is low.
France confirmed a case in June in a doctor – since cured – returning from a humanitarian mission in Congo. A Swiss woman who is believed to have contracted the virus in Uganda was medically evacuated to Geneva for treatment last month and her husband, a diplomat, was placed in isolation in Zurich.
The disease spreading in some of Congo’s most remote provinces has infected 10,600 people, more than 5,100 of whom have died. It extends to 67 health zones across eight provinces, up from three zones when it was first declared in May.
“The infection of a British healthcare worker with Ebola is deeply concerning, but it is not entirely unexpected,” said Dr Damien Tully, an infectious disease expert at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. “Healthcare workers are on the front lines of these outbreaks, often treating critically ill patients under extremely difficult conditions. Even with rigorous protective measures, accidental exposures can occur.”
Gn Health
