UK doctor flown back from Congo with Ebola, placed in isolation at Royal Free Hospital

A UK doctor who acquired Ebola while working in the Democratic Republic of Congo was returned to Britain and is being cared for in a specialised isolation ward at the Royal Free Hospital in north London. The patient, whose identity has not been disclosed, arrived on a medical evacuation aircraft coordinated by the governments of the UK and the DRC along with international health partners, landing at RAF Northolt on Thursday. A convoy of emergency vehicles, including three police vans, two ambulances and a support vehicle, escorted the transfer, with police halting traffic to keep the public clear. The doctor is the first confirmed UK national to catch Ebola during the current outbreak, which has caused more than 5,000 deaths and over 10,000 cases since it began in May. The outbreak, driven by the Bundibugyo strain, shows a fatality rate of 48.6% at the end of last month. Dr Renu Bindra of the UK Health Security Agency said established protocols are in place and the risk to the wider public is low. The Royal Free Hospital has previously treated three health‑workers evacuated from the West Africa Ebola crisis of 2014‑15; those were the only other UK cases besides a 1976 laboratory incident, and none resulted in death. The World Health Organization notes that two vaccine candidates – one developed by the University of Oxford with the Serum Institute of India and another by Moderna – will join an ongoing trial once approved by Congolese authorities. The current outbreak has also spread to Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda.

Context

Ebola spreads through direct contact with infected bodily fluids and has no fully approved vaccine, so rapid isolation of cases is critical. The UK has dealt with only a handful of cases, all managed in specialist hospitals, keeping community risk low. New vaccine trials aim to protect against the specific Bundibugyo variant that is driving the present outbreak.