British Health Worker With Ebola to Be Evacuated From DR Congo to UK for Specialist Treatment
LONDON — A British healthcare worker who contracted Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo is being flown back to Britain for specialist treatment. The British government confirmed on November 4 that a British citizen currently in the DR Congo had tested positive for Ebola; the patient is in a stable condition and is expected to arrive in Britain on Wednesday, November 4, or Thursday, November 5, before being transferred by specialist ambulance to a high-consequence infectious disease unit.
"A British citizen currently in the DR Congo has tested positive for Ebola," a British government spokesperson said. "The UK has well-established procedures for dealing with cases like this, and those processes have been activated. The risk to the UK public from Ebola remains low." According to an official document seen by Reuters, British authorities did not expect the case to have a serious public health impact in Britain, and anticipated no disruption to international travel or trade.
The patient, whose identity has not been disclosed, had been sent to the DR Congo by a humanitarian organisation to help support the response to the outbreak. It is the first case involving a British national linked to the current outbreak, although several other people from elsewhere in Europe have also been infected.
The outbreak in the DR Congo, declared on May 15, is the second-largest on record; Reuters reported more than 10,000 confirmed cases and nearly 5,000 deaths by late October. Imported Ebola cases in Britain remain extremely uncommon: only four confirmed cases have been recorded in the country since 1976, according to the UK Health Security Agency — one in 1976 resulting from a laboratory needle incident, and three involving health workers who responded to the outbreak in West Africa between 2014 and 2015.
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Source: Government of the United Kingdom
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：埃博拉病毒电镜图像。美国疾控中心，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Electron micrograph of the Ebola virus. U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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