The United Kingdom has evacuated a British medical doctor who tested positive for Ebola virus disease while treating patients in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the patient now receiving specialist care at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

The UK government disclosed this on Thursday in a notice issued by the Department of Health and Social Care, titled “UK citizen returned from DRC for specialist Ebola care”.

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According to the statement, the evacuation was carried out in collaboration with the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and international health partners.

The government said established infection prevention and control procedures were followed throughout the medical evacuation, including measures to protect everyone involved in the patient’s care.

The doctor is currently being treated in a high-level isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital, which is specially designed to manage highly infectious diseases.

The notice stated that the unit is staffed by specialist clinical teams and operates strict isolation procedures to prevent contact between the patient and members of the public.

It added that medical personnel attending to the doctor are equipped with appropriate personal protective equipment and other safeguards to minimise the risk of transmission.

The Deputy Director of All Hazards Public Health Response at the UK Health Security Agency, Dr Renu Bindra, said the agency and the National Health Service had established infection prevention and control protocols to limit the possibility of further transmission.

She maintained that the risk to the wider public remained low.

Sky News reported that the hospital had previously treated adult patients with Lassa fever, Ebola and Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever.

The incident is reportedly the first involving a British national linked to the current Ebola outbreak, although several Europeans from other countries have been infected in recent months.

According to the UK Health Security Agency, only four cases of Ebola involving patients in the UK have been confirmed since 1976.

Three of those cases involved health workers who responded to the West African outbreak between 2014 and 2015.

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

The World Health Organisation said 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 made Nigeria the fifth country to detect the virus since the outbreak was declared in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 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 after two rounds of laboratory testing.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has also said that the 62 contacts identified following confirmation of the imported case are expected to complete monitoring by November 13, 2026.

The agency said contact tracing and monitoring were continuing, with additional contact tracers mapped and trained to strengthen surveillance.

In another development, the World Health Organisation approved clinical trials for two new Ebola vaccines on November 4, 2026, as health authorities continue efforts to contain the outbreak.

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The vaccines, ChAdOx1 BDBV, developed by the University of Oxford in collaboration with the Serum Institute of India, and mRNA-1469, developed by Moderna, were specifically designed for the Bundibugyo virus.