Ebola: UK evacuates infected doctor from DR Congo

The Royal Free Hospital in London. Credit: Reuters.

An unnamed British medical doctor who treated patients with Ebola virus disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been flown to the United Kingdom to commence treatment, the UK government said on Thursday.

This was disclosed in a notice from the Department of Health and Social Care, titled “UK citizen returned from DRC for specialist Ebola care,” and sighted by PUNCH Online on the UK government’s website.

It noted that the doctor was transported to the UK to receive “specialist treatment” after testing positive for Ebola.

The notice added that the doctor was evacuated in a joint effort between the governments of the UK and the DRC, adding that infection prevention and control procedures were applied to those involved in the individual’s care.

“A UK medical doctor who was working on the Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has returned to the UK for specialist treatment after testing positive for the disease.

“The UK government worked with the DRC government and international health partners to bring the patient home safely on a medical evacuation flight. The journey followed established infection prevention and control procedures, which also apply to everyone involved in the individual’s care.

“They are now being cared for in a high-level isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital, London. This unit is highly specialised and specifically designed for this purpose, staffed by expert clinical teams,” the notice read partly.

The Deputy Director, All Hazards Public Health Response at UKHSA, Dr Renu Bindra, said the agency and the National Health Service “have well-established and robust infection prevention and control protocols to limit the risk of onward transmission, and the risk to the wider public remains low.”

According to the notice, the Royal Free Hospital isolation unit has strict isolation protocols in place to prevent the patient coming into contact with any members of the public.

It added that all staff treating the patient are equipped with the necessary personal protective equipment alongside other measures to prevent transmission.

Sky News reports Thursday that adult patients with Lassa fever, Ebola and Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever have been treated at the hospital in the past.

It said this is the first case involving a British national linked to the current outbreak – the world’s second-largest ever – though several Europeans from other countries have been infected in recent months.

Only four cases of the virus, which has a high fatality rate, have been confirmed in the UK since 1976, according to the ⁠UK Health Security Agency.

Three of those involved health workers who responded to the outbreak in West Africa between 2014 and 2015, the report added.

On October 20, 2026, Nigeria confirmed its first case of Ebola disease in the current outbreak after laboratory tests detected the Bundibugyo virus in a woman who had travelled to the country from Uganda.

According to the World Health Organisation, the patient developed symptoms on October 7, four days after arriving in Nigeria, and sought medical attention at a private health facility in Abuja on October 11.

The laboratory confirmation on October 20 made Nigeria the fifth country to detect the virus since the outbreak was declared in the DRC on May 15, 2026.

The index patient was subsequently evacuated to Switzerland on October 26 for further medical care, alongside her husband, who was identified as a close contact.

Meanwhile, two additional suspected Ebola cases identified in Yola, Adamawa State, were ruled out following two rounds of laboratory testing, easing concerns about a possible spread of the infection to the North-East.

However, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has said the 62 contacts identified following the confirmation of an imported Ebola case in the country are expected to complete monitoring by November 13, 2026.

It said contact tracing and monitoring were continuing, while additional contact tracers had been mapped and trained to strengthen surveillance.

On November 4, 2026, the WHO approved clinical trials for two new Ebola vaccines, as doctors fight to control an outbreak in Africa that has killed more than 5,300 people.

Those two — ChAdOx1 BDBV, developed by the University of Oxford with the Serum Institute of India, and Moderna’s mRNA-1469 — were developed specifically for the Bundibugyo virus.