A British doctor who tested positive for Ebola while working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been brought to the United Kingdom for specialist care at the Royal Free Hospital in London, the Department of Health and Social Care said on Thursday^1,2.

The patient is being treated in a high-level isolation unit at the hospital in Hampstead, north London^1,2. The identity of the doctor has not been released¹.

The doctor was sent to the DRC by a humanitarian organization to help respond to the outbreak and is the first British national reported to have contracted Ebola in this outbreak, according to The Guardian¹. Manchester Evening News said the transfer was a medical evacuation involving the UK and DRC governments and international health partners².

Dr Renu Bindra, deputy director for all-hazards public health response at the UK Health Security Agency, said UKHSA and the NHS have infection-prevention protocols meant to limit onward transmission, and that the risk to the wider public remains low^1,2.

A government spokesperson said on Wednesday that a British citizen in the DRC had tested positive, that established procedures had been activated, and that the risk to the UK public from Ebola remained low².

Manchester Evening News said the Royal Free unit is staffed by a dedicated clinical team that has previously treated patients with Lassa fever, Ebola and Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, with restricted access and filtered air leaving the unit². The Guardian said staff treating the patient use personal protective equipment and other measures intended to prevent transmission¹.

Both reports said Ebola is spread through direct contact with body fluids of infected people, such as blood or vomit^1,2. Manchester Evening News also listed contact with contaminated materials such as bedding and clothing².

The Guardian said the DRC outbreak, declared in May, has surpassed 10,000 cases and 5,000 deaths and has been reported in Kenya, Uganda and, last month, Nigeria¹. Manchester Evening News put worldwide confirmed cases at more than 9,600 and deaths in the DRC at around 5,000, and said WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern in May². Those tallies are not independently verified here.

Both outlets said only four Ebola cases have previously been confirmed in the UK: a 1976 laboratory needle incident, according to The Guardian, and three health workers linked to the 2014-15 West Africa outbreak^1,2. Manchester Evening News, citing UKHSA, said there have been no deaths from Ebola in the UK².

Not medical advice.