France's Health Ministry said Wednesday that a doctor who returned from a humanitarian assignment in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been diagnosed with Ebola. Reuters reported that this is the first confirmed case in France during the current Ebola outbreak in Africa. The patient was isolated, and health authorities opened an epidemiological investigation and began tracing people who may have had contact with him. Officials said the risk to the general public in Europe remains low.
The diagnosis comes amid an unusually large outbreak in eastern Congo. According to the World Health Organization, more than 1,000 people have been infected and 267 have died so far. Reuters said the outbreak has produced the highest number of confirmed cases in the first month of an Ebola outbreak since record-keeping began. WHO says the rapid spread is partly because early cases appeared in cities and mining centers, including Bunia and the town of Mungbwalu, rather than only in remote rural areas.
In May, the WHO declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, its highest alert level before a pandemic declaration. At the time, the agency said there were hundreds of suspected cases and dozens of deaths in eastern Congo, as well as cases in Uganda and Kinshasa. It also warned that the real scale of the outbreak could be significantly larger than official figures suggested.
The current outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola, which is relatively rare and has no approved vaccine or specific treatment. The WHO and the International Organization for Migration have also raised concern about spread into displacement camps in eastern Congo, where at least 25 Ebola cases and 14 deaths have been confirmed. The French case is not the first involving medical staff, as an American doctor, Peter Stafford, was flown from Congo to Berlin for treatment and isolation last month after becoming infected. In Israel, the Health Ministry said two men hospitalized after returning from Congo tested negative, and no confirmed Ebola cases have been identified in the country.
