A British doctor who was working in the Democratic Republic of Congo tested positive for Ebola and has been returned to the United Kingdom for specialist treatment, the Department of Health and Social Care announced on Thursday. The patient's identity is not known.
The patient was flown home on a medical evacuation flight and is currently being treated in a specialist high-level isolation unit at Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, north London. The isolation unit has strict protocols to prevent the patient from coming into contact with any member of the public, and all staff treating the patient are equipped with the necessary personal protective equipment alongside other measures to prevent transmission.
Dr Renu Bindra, deputy director for public health response to all hazards at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), stated that UKHSA and the NHS have well-established and robust infection prevention and control protocols to limit the risk of further transmission. She emphasised that the risk to the wider public remains low.
A humanitarian organisation sent the doctor to the DRC to help with the response to the outbreak, which is the second largest ever recorded. This is the first case of a British national contracting Ebola in the current outbreak.
Ebola is a highly contagious, severe and often fatal disease that spreads through direct contact with the bodily fluids, such as blood or vomit, of infected people, or with dead bodies. People with the disease usually fall ill two to 21 days after contact with orthoebolavirus, and initial symptoms include fever, aches, malaise and fatigue, but can progress to diarrhoea, vomiting and unexplained bleeding.
The current outbreak, declared by the DRC health ministry in May, has surpassed 10,000 cases and 5,000 deaths. The outbreak has spread to Kenya and Uganda in East Africa, and last month Nigeria confirmed a case in its capital, Abuja.
In the United Kingdom, there have previously been only four confirmed cases of the virus. The 1976 case was the result of a laboratory needle incident, while the other three cases involved healthcare workers who responded to outbreaks in West Africa between 2014 and 2015.
